Roy Hirabayashi
| Roy Mitsuru Hirabayashi | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1951 California |
| Occupation | Musician, Composer, Nonprofit organizational consultant |
| Spouse(s) | PJ Hirabayashi |
Roy Hirabayashi is a leader in North American taiko. He is a composer, performer, teacher and activist. He is co-founder of one of the seminal taiko groups in North America, San Jose Taiko, the group's former Artistic and Executive Director, and active in developing San Jose’s Japantown and arts community.
In 2011, he was awarded the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship in Folk and Traditional Arts, the highest arts award in this category given in the United States.
Roy Hirabayashi was born in Berkeley, California in 1951. His parents were also born in the United States (kibei); however, they were sent to Japan as young children where they adopted Japanese culture and traditions.
Roy grew up in east Oakland, California and was active in the Oakland Buddhist Temple where he and his family worshiped. Roy’s first introduction to the taiko drum was at the temple’s summer Obon Festival.
Hirabayashi attended San Jose State beginning in 1969. At the time, San Jose State was a mecca for anti-war protests. So much, in fact, that the school was in constant threat of being shut down due to strikes by teachers and students alike. This inspired Roy to learn more about his roots as a Japanese-American. Hirabayashi became interested in the social sciences and worked in the Asian American studies program at San Jose State.
In 1973, Reverend Abiko recruited Dean Miyakusu and Hirabayashi to begin a taiko program through their Buddhist temple. They were inspired by Kinnara Taiko in Los Angeles They decided they wanted to involve the kids in the community in taiko and enlisted Roy Hirabayashi’s support. Roy also invited his peers and under his leadership the program took off.
In July and August 1973, after Roy began a fundraiser for the group, Roy and Dean Miyakusu went to L.A. to meet Reverend Kodani of Kinnara Taiko and learn more about running a taiko group. Reverend Kodani set them up with some drums and taught them how to make their own drums. The drum building techniques Roy learned from Kinnara, and then honed with his own taiko group, provided San Jose Taiko a financially plausible way to build their drum ensemble and grow as a group.
In October, just two months after visiting L.A. and Reverend Kodani, San Jose Taiko finished building their own drum set and creating their own songs and they had their first performance. The following summer, during the San Jose Buddhist Church Obon festival, Roy Hirabayashi met Seiichi Tanaka, the founder of San Francisco Taiko Dojo, the first North American Taiko group. Tanaka offered the San Jose Taiko members an opportunity to engage in his own group’s workshops. For a period of time, San Jose Taiko group members drove up to San Francisco to study with Seiichi Tanaka. After about a year, however, the group decided to continue and strengthen their own unique identity and concluded their study with San Francisco Taiko.
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