(born 1948) is a Japanese percussionist, composer and singer based in London. He plays taiko and shakuhachi and leads the group Joji Hirota and the London Taiko Drummers.
Born in Otaru, Hokkaido, Hirota joined Stomu Yamashta's Red Buddha Theatre in 1972 and settled in England after its tours. He became music director of the Lindsay Kemp company in 1977 and has recorded for Real World Records and ARC Music. His taiko playing appears on the soundtracks of Silence, Isle of Dogs and Ghost of Tsushima.
Early life Hirota was born in Otaru on the island of Hokkaido. His father sang folk songs as a hobby, and gave him a child-sized shakuhachi when he was five. He played in a fife and drum band at primary school and in brass bands at junior high and high school, adding timpani and cymbals to the recorder and drums he already knew. He began formal percussion study at eleven and composed his first pieces at thirteen.
His drumming teacher was Itto Ohba, a taiko master from Hokkaido. Hirota has said that Ohba told him not to copy his teacher's style and to build his own music on what he had been taught.
Hirota took up the piano in his final year of high school to prepare for music college. He entered the Kyoto City University of Arts, then named Kyoto Municipal University of Arts, and left in his fourth year to take up professional work.
Career
Red Buddha Theatre and Lindsay Kemp company In the summer of his fourth year at university, a senior contact introduced Hirota to Stomu Yamashta, who was bringing his Red Buddha Theatre production to the festival at Avignon. The show then toured France, the United Kingdom and the United States, and its London run set a box office record. Hirota became the company's music director and percussionist. He is credited with claves and vocals on a 1972 recording of the company's music. Hirota later said that without Yamashta's invitation he might have stayed with the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra for the rest of his career.
After about two and a half years abroad he returned to Japan. British musicians he had met in London then visited Japan and worked with him, and this led him back to London. In 1977 he became music director and solo percussionist of the Lindsay Kemp company, which toured Europe, the Americas and Japan. He wrote and performed the music for the company's production Onnagata, which won the Time Out award for best dance company in 1991.
Solo work and collaborations Hirota has played at WOMAD festivals since 1986, both as a solo percussionist and with the Chinese flautist Guo Yue. In 1991 he formed the trio Trísan with Guo Yue and Pól Brennan of Clannad. The group toured Europe, Canada, the United States and Japan, and its first album, released in November 1992, received a nomination from Tower Records in New York for best contemporary instrumental album.
With the former Genesis guitarist Anthony Phillips, Hirota wrote and performed music for Anglia Television's Survival wildlife programmes, and the pair also produced library music. Their work was later collected on the album Wildlife. Hirota also formed a percussion duo with Pete Lockett called Taiko to Tabla, which recorded a live concert at the Bruges Festival in February 1998.
In 1999 Hirota began working with the London Metropolitan Orchestra and made the album The Gate for Real World Records. EMI Japan issued a Japanese edition in 2002, and he toured Japan with the orchestra's string ensemble. He played a solo set at Expo 2000 in Hanover, and in 2001 toured the United Kingdom as part of the Japan UK Festival with the project Tozai. In 2006 he toured Britain and Europe with the JJK Project alongside John Kaizan Neptune and Kenny Endo.
Around 2000 Hirota played percussion for the Royal Shakespeare Company and co-composed the music for its production of Macbeth.
Joji Hirota and the London Taiko Drummers Hirota founded his taiko group in the 1980s. It has been billed as Joji Hirota and Hiten Ryu Daiko, Joji Hirota and the Taiko Drummers and Joji Hirota and the London Taiko Drummers. In Britain he often played with Mark Alcock and James Barrow. Alcock later formed the group Taiko Meantime and has described the period from 1994 to 2004 as the time he played with Hirota.
The group opened the Live Earth concert at Wembley Stadium on 7 July 2007. Organisers assembled a large ensemble of drummers from different traditions for the show, and a preview in pipesdrums listed Hirota among them alongside Roger Taylor of Queen and members of the Foo Fighters. The group also opened the 2008 London ceremony for the 60th anniversary of Amnesty International, and it performed at a business awards ceremony attended by the Prince of Wales.
As part of Japanese government arts projects in 2007 the group travelled to Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. Its later tours have included Israel and parts of Africa. In London, Hirota closed the Japan Matsuri festival, which drew about 70,000 people, with taiko, shakuhachi and folk singing. A review in the Botswana newspaper The Guardian Sun described a 2016 performance at a drum festival presented by the Japanese embassy there, where the group played Hokkai, a piece Hirota wrote in tribute to his teacher Itto Ohba and Ohba's son Kazuoki.
The group released the albums Japanese Drums in 2009, with a five-piece line-up named Hiten Ryu Daiko, and Japanese Taiko in 2016. A review from the Japan Society in London described the second as rooted in natural themes and cinematic in feel.
Tōhoku earthquake response After the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Hirota created the production Beyond the Requiem and gave charity concerts built on his arrangements of folk songs from the Tōhoku region. He toured three prefectures in northeast Japan with the London Metropolitan Orchestra, whose director is Andy Brown, in a concert series that included the Hokkaido folk song Esashi Oiwake. He has since given annual commemorative concerts with the orchestra and the London Taiko Drummers. His 2013 album Japanese Folk Songs II contains nine pieces connected to the Tōhoku region.
Later work In 2020 Hirota produced the album Taiko Do for the Italian taiko group KyoShinDo. In 2021 he released Prayer's Tale, on which he plays taiko, bells, gongs, shakuhachi and music boxes and sings. Audio Network also carries his music in its production music catalogue.
Film, television and game work Hirota's taiko and shakuhachi playing has been used in several film and game scores. Music by Hirota was placed in films such as The Last Samurai, 47 Ronin and Martin Scorsese's Silence (2016).
For Isle of Dogs, Hirota was one of the taiko players on the Alexandre Desplat score. The taiko player Kaoru Watanabe, who performed on the soundtrack, invited Hirota to join him at the film's Berlin Film Festival premiere.
For Ghost of Tsushima Hirota led a three-player taiko ensemble at AIR Studios in London, with Eri Kaishima and Yoshinori Hayashi.
Honours
1991: Time Out award for best dance company, for the Lindsay Kemp company's Onnagata, for which he wrote and performed the music. 1993: Nomination from Tower Records, New York, for the first Trísan album. 2004: Ambassador's commendation from the Japanese Embassy in London, for his contribution to Japanese musical activity outside Japan. 2012: Commendation from the emperor and empress of Japan for his work overseas.
Discography
Albums YearTitleLabelNotes1976SahasuraraReleased as George Hirota1981The Wheel of FortuneInner City Records1990Rain Forest DreamSaydisc Records1993Travelogues 4AtmosphereWith Anthony Phillips1994Red RibbonRiverboat RecordsWith Guo Yue1997Missing Links Volume 3: Time and TideBlueprintWith Anthony Phillips1999The GateReal World RecordsJapanese edition on EMI Japan, 20021999Nature + Wildlife (The Natural World)Themes International MusicWith Anthony Phillips2002Taiko to Tabla: Live at the Bruges Festival 1998With Pete Lockett2004Taiko to TablaARC MusicWith Pete Lockett2007Japanese Folk SongsARC Music2008Masters of PercussionARC MusicWith Hossam Ramzy, Sarwar Sabri and Emmanuel Tagoe2009Japanese DrumsARC MusicWith Hiten Ryu Daiko2013Japanese Folk Songs IIARC Music2016Japanese TaikoARC MusicWith the London Taiko Drummers2020Taiko DoProducer, for KyoShinDo2021Prayer's TaleARC Music
Compilation
Wildlife (with Anthony Phillips)
Selected stage, screen and game credits YearTitleTypeContribution1972The Man from the East (Red Buddha Theatre)Stage / recordingClaves and vocals1991Onnagata (Lindsay Kemp company)Dance theatreComposer and performerc. 2000Macbeth (Royal Shakespeare Company)StagePercussionist and co-composer2003The Last SamuraiFilmRecorded music201347 RoninFilmRecorded music2016SilenceFilmMusic featured2018Isle of DogsFilmTaiko2020Ghost of TsushimaVideo gameLed taiko ensemblen.d.Survival (Anglia Television)TelevisionMusic, with Anthony Phillips
References
External links