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San Francisco Taiko Dojo
San Francisco Taiko Dojo, founded in 1968 by Grand Master Seiichi Tanaka, was the first taiko group in North America, and has been seen as the primary link between the Japanese and North American branches of the art form. Additionally, Tanaka's belief that learning to play taiko only requires a genuine interest in the art form (rather than Japanese ethnicity or heritage), has greatly contributed to taiko's success and growth outside Japan. Roots of "Tanaka Style" (History and Guiding Principles) Tanaka's background The dojo has been under the leadership of Tanaka-Sensei since he founded it in 1968. Therefore, to understand SFTD's style, one must first understand "Tanaka style". Tanaka was born, raised, and educated in Japan. Not long after he graduated from Chiba University of Commerce (in 1964), Tanaka came to the United States for the first time (in 1967). While in San Francisco, Tanaka attended the annual Cherry Blossom Festival in San Francisco Japantown. He was somewhat dis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seiichi Tanaka
is the first Japan-trained teacher of kumidaiko, or taiko, in the United States and is largely regarded as the father of the art form in North America. Early life Tanaka was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1943 and immigrated to the United States in 1967. He returned to Japan to study the art of kumidaiko with Daihachi Oguchi in Nagano prefecture, Japan, with Susumu Kowase of Oedo Sukeroku Taiko in Tokyo, and Shosaku Ikeda, of Gojinjo Daiko. Career In 1968, he founded the San Francisco Taiko Dojo, which was the first North American taiko ensemble. Tanaka and San Francisco Taiko Dojo host an annual International Taiko Festival at Zellerbach Hall on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. His performance credits include work on the soundtrack for '' The Right Stuff'' and an appearance playing his signature piece, "Tsunami", in the film '' Rising Sun''. In April 2005, Tanaka and San Francisco Taiko Dojo were the subjects of a segment that aired on KQED public televisio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apocalypse Now
''Apocalypse Now'' is a 1979 American psychological epic war film produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The screenplay, co-written by Coppola, John Milius, and Michael Herr, is loosely inspired by the 1899 novella '' Heart of Darkness'' by Joseph Conrad, with the setting changed from late 19th-century Congo to the Vietnam War. The film follows a river journey from South Vietnam into Cambodia undertaken by Captain Willard (Martin Sheen), who is on a secret mission to assassinate Colonel Kurtz ( Marlon Brando), a renegade Special Forces officer who is accused of murder and presumed insane. The ensemble cast also features Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest, Albert Hall, Sam Bottoms, Laurence Fishburne, Dennis Hopper, and Harrison Ford. Milius became interested in adapting ''Heart of Darkness'' for a Vietnam War setting in the late 1960s, and initially began developing the film with Coppola as producer and George Lucas as director. After Lucas became unavailable ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Max Roach
Maxwell Lemuel Roach (January 10, 1924 – August 16, 2007) was an American jazz drummer and composer. A pioneer of bebop, he worked in many other styles of music, and is generally considered one of the most important drummers in history. He worked with many famous jazz musicians, including Clifford Brown, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Abbey Lincoln, Dinah Washington, Charles Mingus, Billy Eckstine, Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, Eric Dolphy, and Booker Little. He also played with his daughter Maxine Roach, a Grammy nominated violist. He was inducted into the ''DownBeat'' Hall of Fame in 1980 and the '' Modern Drummer'' Hall of Fame in 1992. In the mid-1950s, Roach co-led a pioneering quintet along with trumpeter Clifford Brown. In 1970, he founded the percussion ensemble M'Boom. Biography Early life and career Max Roach was born to Alphonse and Cressie Roach in the Township of Newland, Pasquotank County ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Francisco Ballet
San Francisco Ballet is the oldest ballet company in the United States, founded in 1933 as the San Francisco Opera Ballet under the leadership of ballet master Adolph Bolm. The company is currently based in the War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco. Tamara Rojo has been its director since December of 2022. It is among the world's leading dance companies, presenting more than 100 performances annually, with a repertoire that spans both classical and contemporary ballet. Along with American Ballet Theatre and the New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet has been described as part of the "triumvirate of great classical companies defining the American style on the world stage today." History Founding: Christensen brothers Willam Christensen, Harold Christensen, and Lew Christensen made up the famed trio of brothers considered by many to have done more than anyone else to establish ballet in the United States. Born into an artistic and musical family, the three brothe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linda Ronstadt
Linda Maria Ronstadt (born July 15, 1946) is an American singer who has performed and recorded in diverse genres including rock, country, light opera, the Great American Songbook, and Latin music. Ronstadt has earned 11 Grammy Awards, three American Music Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, and an ALMA Award. Many of her albums have been Music recording sales certification, certified gold, platinum or multiplatinum in the United States and internationally. She has also earned nominations for a Tony Award and a Golden Globe award. She was awarded the Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award by the Latin Recording Academy in 2011 and also awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award by the Recording Academy in 2016. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April 2014. On July 28, 2014, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts and Humanities. In 2019, she received a star jointly with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris on the Hollywood Walk of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bobby McFerrin
Robert Keith McFerrin Jr. (born March 11, 1950) is an American singer, songwriter, and conductor (music), conductor. His Vocal pedagogy, vocal techniques include singing fluidly but with quick and considerable jumps in Pitch (music), pitch—for example, sustaining a melody while also rapidly alternating with arpeggios and harmonies—as well as scat singing, Polyphony, polyphonic overtone singing, and improvisational vocal percussion. He performs and records regularly as an unaccompanied solo vocal artist. He has frequently collaborated with other artists from both the jazz and Classical music, classical scenes. McFerrin's song "Don't Worry, Be Happy" is the only A cappella, acapella track to ever reach No. 1 in the US, which it reached in 1988 and additionally won Grammy Award for Song of the Year, Song of the Year and Grammy Award for Record of the Year, Record of the Year honors at the 31st Annual Grammy Awards, 1989 Grammy Awards. McFerrin has also worked in collaboration ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Art Blakey
Arthur Blakey (October 11, 1919 – October 16, 1990) was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. He was also known as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina after he converted to Islam for a short time in the late 1940s. Blakey made a name for himself in the 1940s in the big bands of Fletcher Henderson and Billy Eckstine. He then worked with bebop musicians Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie. In the mid-1950s, Horace Silver and Blakey formed The Jazz Messengers, a group which he led for the next 35 years. The group was formed as a collective of contemporaries, but over the years the band became known as an incubator for young talent, including Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, Lee Morgan, Benny Golson, Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley, Donald Byrd, Jackie McLean, Johnny Griffin, Curtis Fuller, Chuck Mangione, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Cedar Walton, Woody Shaw, Terence Blanchard, and Wynton Marsalis. ''The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz'' calls the Jazz Messengers "the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Temptations
The Temptations is an American vocal group formed in Detroit, Michigan, in 1961 as The Elgins, known for their string of successful singles and albums with Motown from the 1960s to the mid-1970s. The group's work with producer Norman Whitfield, beginning with the Top 10 hit single " Cloud Nine" in October 1968, pioneered psychedelic soul, and was significant in the evolution of R&B and soul music. The group members were known for their choreography, distinct harmonies, and dress style. Having sold tens of millions of albums, the Temptations are among the most successful groups in popular music. Featuring five male vocalists and dancers (save for brief periods with fewer or more members), the group's founding members came from two rival Detroit vocal groups: Otis Williams, Elbridge "Al" Bryant, and Melvin Franklin of (Otis Williams &) The Distants, and Eddie Kendricks and Paul Williams of The Primes. In 1964, Bryant was replaced by David Ruffin, who was the lead vocalist on a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
KQED (TV)
KQED (channel 9) is a PBS member television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving the San Francisco Bay Area. The station is owned by KQED Inc., alongside fellow PBS station KQEH (channel 54) and NPR member KQED-FM (88.5). The three stations share studios on Mariposa Street in San Francisco's Mission District and transmitter facilities at Sutro Tower. KQET (channel 25) in Watsonville operates as a full-time satellite of KQED, serving the Santa Cruz– Salinas– Monterey market. This station's transmitter is located at Fremont Peak, near San Juan Bautista. History KQED was organized and founded by veteran broadcast journalists James Day and Jonathan Rice on June 1, 1953, and first signed on the air on April 5, 1954, as the fourth television station in the San Francisco Bay Area and the sixth public television station in the United States, debuting shortly after the launch of WQED in Pittsburgh. The station's call letters, ''Q.E.D.'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rising Sun (1993 Film)
''Rising Sun'' is a 1993 American buddy cop crime thriller film directed by Philip Kaufman, who also wrote the screenplay with Michael Crichton and Michael Backes. The film stars Sean Connery (who was also an executive producer), Wesley Snipes, Harvey Keitel, Tia Carrere, Mako and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa. It was based on Michael Crichton's 1992 novel '' Rising Sun''. Plot During a commencement gala at the newly opened Los Angeles headquarters of Nakamoto, a Japanese keiretsu, call girl Cheryl Lynn Austin was strangled while having rough sex on the boardroom table. LAPD Lieutenant Webster "Web" Smith and John Connor, a former police captain and expert on Japanese affairs, are sent to act as liaison between the Japanese executives and the investigating officer, Smith's former partner Tom Graham. During the initial investigation, Connor and Smith review surveillance camera footage, and realize that one of the discs is missing. Smith and Connor suspect Eddie Sakamura, Cheryl's boyfr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philip Kaufman
Philip Kaufman (born October 23, 1936) is an American film director and screenwriter who has directed fifteen films over a career spanning nearly five decades. He has received numerous accolades including a BAFTA Award along with nominations for an Academy Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. He has been described as a "maverick" and an "iconoclast," notable for his versatility and independence, often directing eclectic and controversial films. He is considered an "auteur" whose films have always expressed his personal vision. Kaufman's works have included genres such as realism, horror, fantasy, erotica, western, and crime. Kaufman earned his breakthrough for the film '' The Unbearable Lightness of Being'' (1988) which earned him the BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay as well as a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He is noted for directing such films as '' The Wanderers'' (1979), '' Rising Sun'' (1993), the remake of ''Invasion of the Body ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Right Stuff (film)
''The Right Stuff'' is a 1983 American epic historical drama film written and directed by Philip Kaufman and based on the 1979 book of the same name by Tom Wolfe. The film follows the Navy, Marine, and Air Force test pilots who were involved in aeronautical research at Edwards Air Force Base, California, as well as the Mercury Seven, the seven military pilots who were selected to be the astronauts for Project Mercury, the first human spaceflight by the United States. The film stars Sam Shepard, Ed Harris, Scott Glenn, Fred Ward, Dennis Quaid, Barbara Hershey and Kim Stanley (in her final film); Levon Helm narrates and plays Air Force test pilot Jack Ridley. ''The Right Stuff'' was a box-office bomb, grossing about $21 million (domestically) against a $27 million budget. However, it received widespread critical acclaim and was nominated for eight Oscars at the 56th Academy Awards, four of which it won. The film was a huge success on the home video market. In 2013, it was s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
