A night of bliss with Joji Hiroto & the Taiko Drummers

Ever heard of Taiko drum players before, nope?
Well, I didn’t either until last Thursday night when the Japanese embassy presented a drum festival at Westwood International School’s Mantlwaneng Theatre as part of a series of activities to celebrate the 50 years of diplomatic relations between Japan and Botswana.

Wow! What an awe-inspiring one-hour of pure bliss and magic the experience turned out to be when Joji Hirota and his three drummers comprising two females (Tokiko Minoda and Eri Kaishima) and a male (Yoshinori Hayashi), took to the stage to deliver his nine-song repertoire that ended with a request for an encore.

But before the Japanese master drummer, composer and philanthropist could begin his set the audience was treated to a dance performance by our own Ben Thema primary school kids, who defied the cold night to dish out the alluring Tswana folk song, ‘Re Batswana’, which has been popularised by the late Stampore.

Trotting onto and out of the stage the largely female-member group sang the refrain ‘Nku erile di bolola tsa thula phelefu, di thutse Gabanthate, Gabanthate wa Mosarwa’ from that all time folk riddle, ‘Ba GaMmaNgwato baga mabiletsa.’ Shizuka Yoshioka, the economic research advisor at the Japanese embassy would later explain that the relationship between Ben Thema and Japan started in 2013 with the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD V) in Yokohama and has endured to present.

The hall fell into dead silence when Hirota and his Taiko Drummers compassed the 10-drum set in a line formation, and immediately delved into ‘Hokkai,’ a composition by Hirota and tribute to his late drumming teacher, Itto Ohba, renowned as a Great Master from Hokkaido and his late son, Master Kazuoki. Incidentally, Joji Hirita was born in Otaru, Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan.

The crowd gave the drummers a roaring reception. And as if spurred on, Hirota served another of his compositions, ‘Chido- Seisu’ or the (Copernican Theory). This needs not baffle us the uninitiated. After all, Hirota is an accomplished music composer who studied percussion and compositions at Kyoto Arts University in Japan where he certainly would’ve come across the astronomical works of Nicolaus Copernicus, which he’s now fused in his musical career that spans over 30 years, to portray man’s relation with the cosmos and celestial beings.

Listen to songs like ‘Suisei Hanabi’ (comet, fireworks and shooting star), which is a portrayal of the dramatic beauty of the skies in summer night; ‘Haru Ichiban’ about the first strong breeze from the south in early spring in the wake of a harsh winter or ‘The Harvest’, which closed his set on Thursday night to appreciate this background! The man is sheer genius as he traverses his percussions set leading his hard-hitting drummers who also display varying body movements in sync with every song.

As for the folk songs, he played the Hayashi version of ‘Akita Ondo’ which is from Akita, a town in northern Japan. But the crowd favourite will certainly be ‘Kokiriko Bushi’ in which he invited the audience to singalong, following a spontaneous free on-the-spot authentic Japanese lesson, that the Master himself guaranteed was sufficient to land an immigrant a Japanese visa at any entry point! Our hearing of the refrain with all its imperfections went something like; ‘Ma do..do san sawa de de reko dem; Ha deno san samo de de reko dem’!

According to Hiroto, even Qjueen Elizabeth II of England couldn’t help but fall in love with this folk song, which is inspired by Shinto (traditional Japanese belief systems) music and dance of the Toyama Prefecture northwest of Honshu Island, when she heard it during a dinner hosted by Emperor Akihito in Tokyo.
The night’s performance also included Hiroto’s greats like ‘Solan Bushi’, which he explained was a fisherman’s song taken from Hokkaido. In this song, he again invited the audience to singalong urging them to breathe life into the words of the chorus as they are an encouragement to the fisherman to pull out the net.

He also played ‘The Gate’, which according to his bio, is inspired by the Chokushu- Mon (The Gateway of the Imperial Messenger), the Japanese Gate which was brought to London from Japan for the Japan-British exhibition in 1910 and currently stands at the Kew Gardens in southwest London.

Among the dignitaries and high profile personages at Thursday night’s drum festival were Japan’s Ambassador to Botswana H.E. Masahiro Onishi and his wife, ; permanent secretary at ministry of youth, sport and culture Kago Ramokate; former minister of education and foreign affairs and a decorated friend of Japan (Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun) Dr. Gaositwe Chiepe; Business Botswana President, Leta Mosienyane and his wife and renowned economist, Keith Jefferies, his wife and daughter.

The Japan embassy staff also came in droves to lend support and ensure logistics were in place. Among the many we sighted deputy head of mission, Keiji Hamada; second secretaries, Ako Yamamoto and Itsuroh Abe; and from the Press division there was Yoshihiro Uemura and Dikatso Moteu of public relations and Nina Okubo from culture division.

Hiroto, whose projects, according to his short bio, include the Royal Shakespeare Company’s tour as well as charity concerts for Tohoku whose proceeds go to support people affected by the devastating 2011 Tsunami earthquake, currently resides in London, United Kingdom. He played another concert Friday evening at the same venue for the public and was scheduled to leave on Sunday.