From August 18-21, 2011, over 500 taiko enthusiasts gathered at the eighth biennial North American Taiko Conference sponsored by the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center, organized by the Northern California Taiko Network and San Jose Taiko, with support from Stanford University.

As a Chinese-American composer who writes from the margins, I know that I must abolish the central love of my youth–the piano–and find other tools to survive in a new music world where noise and silence excite me as much as melody and rhythm.