About Taiko Drumming and the St. Olaf Group

From Wikipedia: Taiko has grown in the United States since coming over from Japan in the late 1960s. Read more...

Our own St. Olaf Taiko Group was formed in 2004 at the beginning of the year. Our group has strong ties with Mu Daiko, a local professional Minneapolis Taiko Group. Iris Shiraishi was our original sensei (teacher), and still has workshops with us annually. Our group has always been student-led and part of the St. Olaf community.

Our members meet twice weekly- one practice on Friday afternoons at 2:45PM*-5PM in the Lion's Pause (or Viking Theatre if needed), and members also chose to practice during one of two sectional times. During the fall semester, kohai (the name we use for first-time taiko players) will begin to learn Taiko and our songs through close instruction by experienced members, sempai. Due to the commitment that taiko takes, we encourage that interested students join within the first month of practices, or wait until interim. Second semester is full of fun performances, learning new songs, and developing oneself as a taiko artist.
*Members who have class from 2-3PM are not expected to arrive at practice until ~3:10.

Our Current Members

Our group currently is 33 members strong.Here's our crew as it stands right now:

Seniors '12:

1. Sheena Makinster, Co-President
2. Josh Jackson, Co-President
3. Allison Schedin, PR Chair
4. Rachel Lamb
5. Connor Paull*
6. Amanda Olson
7. Fran Deram
8. Kim Hoffman*
9. Elizabeth Johnson*
10. Erik Yoder
11. Mary Scaramuzza
12. Adam Johnson
13. Julia Clark
14. Marta Johnson

Juniors '13:

1. Kelsey Brown*, Vice-President
2. Devin Orchard
3. Kelsey Turner
4. Kehan Bao
5. Haiyun Tang

Sophomores '14:

1. Chella Jagaraj
2. Rebecca Turchan, Treasurer
3. Irene Yuan
4. Erin Wilson*
5. Grant Gordon
6. Kate Hansen
7. Christine Dietz

Freshmen '15:

1. Samantha Rudy
2. Kyle Cramer
3. Dorontinë Berishaj
4. Max Johnson
5. Amanda Steimle, Assistant PR Chair
6. Chris Wellems
7. Reilly Quirk

*Denotes members currently studying off-campus for the semester

You could be on this list! Let us know if you have any questions via email or in person - we're always eagar to train new recruits of any class year! If you are interested in joining, please email us at taiko@stolaf.edu - in most cases, you'll need to be on campus during interim and able to dedicate a lot of time to catch-up.