24 Facts About Kenny Endo

Kenny Endo was born on April 2,1953 and is an American musician and taiko master.

Kenny Endo is the leader of several taiko ensembles and regularly tours, performing traditional and contemporary taiko music.

Today Kenny Endo composes his own music and plays taiko professionally as a solo artist, with his ensembles, and in collaboration with other artists.

Kenny Endo was born on April 2,1953, in Los Angeles, California, to an Issei father and Nisei mother Japanese American parents.

Kenny Endo was raised in Los Angeles with his brother and three sisters, and while he was exposed to some Japanese culture as a child, he grew up as an American.

Kenny Endo played in the school orchestra and band, and on his own drum set throughout middle and high school.

Kenny Endo began college at the University of California, Santa Cruz; he would eventually major in Political Science and minor in Ethnomusicology at UCLA.

Around the same time, in 1973, Kenny Endo had his first experience with kumidaiko when he saw San Francisco Taiko Dojo perform in San Jose.

However, at the time Kinnara Taiko was only playing during the Obon festival season, and Kenny Endo wanted more practice.

Kenny Endo consequently spent a summer studying with Seiichi Tanaka and the San Francisco Taiko Dojo, and, after finishing school at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1976, he moved to San Francisco to continue working with SFTD.

Up until this point in his life, Kenny Endo had been heavily influenced by his love of all music, especially rock and jazz.

Kenny Endo chose taiko, which combined his interest in drums and music and his desire to get back to his cultural roots, and, in 1980, Endo moved to Japan to study the roots of the art form.

Kenny Endo started by playing in a group called O Suwa Daiko for six months before moving to Tokyo at the end of 1980.

Kenny Endo began to do freelance work and duets in 1983, and by 1987 he had gone solo, continuing his studies and composing his own taiko music.

Also while in Japan, Kenny Endo received a natori in hogaku hayashi, Japanese classical drumming.

Kenny Endo was the first ever foreigner to receive the high honor of a natori in the field of hogaku hayashi.

Beyond just being a taiko artist, Kenny Endo is influenced by music from around the world, and these influences come out in his compositions.

Kenny Endo is most well known for has collaborations as a soloist with artists of every genre and is known around the world for his ability to seamlessly weave taiko into all forms.

Kenny Endo continues to stand at the vanguard of the musical and cultural innovation he started.

Kenny Endo's time is split between performing, composing, and teaching, and his goal is to pass on his learnings to the future generations through his school.

Kenny Endo has worked with numerous artists on many distinguished projects.

Kenny Endo's works include, but are not limited to, opening for The Who, performing a duet with singer Bobby McFerrin, performing for Michael Jackson and Prince, as well as Princess Diana and Prince Charles.

Kenny Endo has performed with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the Honolulu Symphony, and the Tokyo Symphony.

In 2022, Kenny Endo received the prestigious US Artists Fellowship and was named a Living Treasure of Hawaii by the Hompa Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii.