About
Japanese Taiko drummers “Yamato” were born in Yamato-no-kuni (country of Yamato), the present day Nara prefecture in 1993 by Masa Ogawa, and has its headquarters in Asuka village in Nara, which is known for many ancient monuments and named as the birthplace of Japanese culture. All started with our participation in a festival held at the Toichi shrine in Kashihara-shi, Nara. We played a piece called “Hyuga” which I composed. Then a newspaper journalist asked for our name for his article, and we didn’t have one. So I just said “Yamato” which just popped out of my head. “Sounds like a road-side cafe” was an often heard comment then, but the name has come to suit us. It just started as a one-off performance, but invitations from many places started to come in and now we run “round the world tours” with more than 150-200 performances a year everywhere in the world. The numbers in the members has grown from four to fifteen now, with both males and females.
