Kinnara Taiko

Kinnara Taiko is a Japanese American drumming ensemble (playing taiko) based out of Senshin Buddhist Temple in Los Angeles, US. They began playing taiko in 1969 when a few third-generation Japanese Americans gathered after an Obon festival and had an impromptu experimental session on an odaiko drum.

Naming themselves after the celestial musicians of Buddhist mythology, the Kinnara, Kinnara Taiko became the first Japanese American Buddhist taiko group. As a Buddhist group, Kinnara places more emphasis on participation, self-awareness and discovering the joy in “just playing” taiko rather than stressing perfection and professionalism as other performance-focused taiko groups do.

They contributed largely to the development of kumi-daiko in North America with their innovation of wine barrel drums and their extensive outreach to other Japanese American Buddhist communities in helping start other temple-based taiko groups.