Yuta Kato

Yuta Kato is a Japanese American teacher, performer, and leader in North American taiko. Among other accomplishments in the North American taiko community, Kato currently performs as a member of UnitOne in Torrance, California, founded UCLA collegiate taiko group, Yukai Daiko, and co-founded the Los Angeles Taiko Institute (LATI).

After discovering his love for taiko as a kid in 1991 through Kagami-Kai, a rise-pounding group, Yuta Kato decided to start learning at San Francisco Taiko Dojo (SFTD). This passion discovered at age 10 has only grown, as he has since traveled the world learning taiko and teaching the art to practitioners and artists. As an undergraduate at UCLA, Kato is often credited with starting Yukai Daiko in 2004, an offshoot organization from UCLA's Kyodo Taiko, though he says that he simply enabled the students’ access to having a space to play, and the formation of the group was out of his hands. Kato currently performs around the world with a number of professional groups.

Personal life

Yuta Kato was born and raised in California. Kato learned drum-making from his father, a practice that the two share to this day. Originally an engineering major, Kato aimed to keep a promise to his best friend that he would continue playing taiko and pursue a career as a professional musician. He also finds joy in sushi-making, and woodworking.

Taiko

Yuta has played for a number of groups, including UCLA Kyodo Taiko, Nihon Taiko Dojo, TAIKOPROJECT, ON Ensemble, Portland Taiko, Los Angeles Taiko Institute (LATI), and most recently, UnitOne. UnitOne takes inspiration from Kodo, a world-renowned professional taiko group from Japan, and plans to be a part of their first ever collaboration project. UnitOne group was formed from instructors at LATI.

From 2007 to 2011, Kato moved to Japan to study taiko under masters of the art such as Tosha Kiyonari, Mochizuki Saburo, and Suzuki Kyosuke. He spent two years in Tokyo learning a very traditional style of taiko that is different than Kumi-daiko which is popular in the United States today. After his time in Tokyo, he moved to Hachijō Island and spent another year learning what he described as a more folk-style way of playing. While there, he worked part-time at a supermarket, and then at a farm, where he was able to see many different ways of living that all had one thing in common, which is that everyone was involved with taiko in some way. There is a more relaxed lifestyle on the island in which taiko is often present as a background performance while the community socializes. Kato helped to start a school on Hachijō and holds classes for people with a wide range of interests in taiko: those who want to exercise, those who want to play recreationally, and others to learn to play like professionals. Kato describes Hachijō taiko as being similar to a club, where people come together for recreation and community, as compared to taiko in Tokyo which is more similar to a concert of classical music.

Yuta Kato describes taiko as a sport without the competitiveness. He appreciates the artistry, athleticism, and teamwork it imbues, while maintaining a more relaxed atmosphere where everyone is having fun. In his words, "success [in taiko] is not measured by you beating other people, but by being able to play together better." A natural leader, Kato aims to spread taiko as widely as he can. His focus is developing relationships between the musicians and their instruments, rather than teaching the history behind the art. As Kato says, “100 years from now no one will know where it [taiko] comes from and I’m cool with it. The only way to keep it around is to teach the quality.”

References