Make Music Philly Spotlight: Kyo Daiko

To anyone unfamiliar with the Settlement Music School, essentially their mission is make music instruction available to everybody – young and old, from all walks of life. Based in Germantown but located all throughout Philadelphia and growing into Camden, NJ, the Settlement Music School is a constantly expanding, always welcoming, incredibly diverse collection of both teachers and students, all with a love and passion for music. Among the surplus of great (all free!) events hosted by Make Music Philly this Friday, June 21st, a can’t-miss is certainly the Settlement Music School’s presentation of a Taiko drum performance, done by the school’s adult ensemble, Kyo Daiko. Taiko, for the uninformed (myself being one of them until right now), is quite simply Japanese for “drum.” Nowadays, the word often refers to an ensemble performance of drums, usually lasting anywhere from 5 to 25 minutes, following a structure in which the tempo rapidly increases as the “grand finale” approaches. Kyo Daiko’s display will take place at The Porch at 30th Street Station, this Friday, June 21st. While the performance is certainly an early one, kicking off at 8:15am, it promises to be a wonderful way to get your busy day of free music started.  Watch their TED performance below.