Portland Taiko

It's been a super busy and amazing month of May! Last weekend we squeezed in a Japanese American history walking tour with , taught a workshop for , and hosted our dear friend and longtime artistic mentor Robert Kikuchi of for an intimate storytelling performance. Shout-out to our community partner , our special home where we can host such a variety of events!
Coming up this weekend, we'll be at Brookwood on Saturday morning at 10:30am. It'll be a double-header for us with another show Saturday night at 's inaugural AANHPI Night Market at Universal Plaza at 6:45pm. Both performances are free and open to the public!

It's back!!! If you've been here awhile, you're familiar with our annual family-friendly outdoor summer concert People of the Drum. We started this event almost 15 years ago and have hosted so many amazing local drummers! We took a brief hiatus in 2025, but this year we are partnering with in a new location.

📍 Outside the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
🗓 Sunday, June 7
⏰ 11:00 AM–1:30 PM
🎟 Free event — RSVP appreciated, but not required!

Find the RSVP link in our bio or sign up here: https://www.orsymphony.org/people-of-the-drum

Stay tuned to learn more about the featured groups for 2026!

Did you know that (almost) all of our performers are volunteers? With the exception of our Artistic Director and part-time Artistic Staff, everyone else is a volunteer with a day job. These dedicated performers spend their evenings and weekends practicing and performing, but it makes it challenging to schedule education programs, which are an important part of our mission. Thanks to some careful planning (and a recent retirement -- congrats !) we've been able to schedule seven assembly programs this school year. We've got two coming up in the next week to help us continue celebrating AANHPI month and we're looking forward to seeing lots of little smiling faces!

In case you missed it! spent some time with us refreshing her memory from her high school taiko-playing days! Kelley created this fantastic story to help us celebrate AANHPI month and we all had a blast playing taiko together. Special thanks to Kelley, , and for helping us make this happen. Like this post if you think Kelley should play with Portland Taiko more often!!!

https://www.koin.com/news/portland/portland-taiko-building-community-through-rhythm-tradition/

This Saturday will be your last chance to see our beloved Artistic Staff MIN! Their last performance with Portland Taiko will be at the Lake Oswego High School Asian Cultural Festival at 6pm. Come see us and wish Min well before they leave for their next adventure -- training with professional taiko group Shidara in Japan!

Discounted tickets can be purchased at asianfestivallo.com with the code PERFORM26.

Music and Mingle 2026 was a blast! Special thanks to for hosting us, for speaking about our mission, and of course all of our funders, donors, and guests. We love the support, and we love an evening spent connecting with our beautiful community!

Music + Mingle is officially sold out! We’re so grateful to all of our generous donors for supporting this event. Today we’re shouting out: , ,
, , , and Two Rivers Aikikai. Thank you SO MUCH!

We can’t wait to see everyone on Friday and celebrate another year of taiko together ~

Music + Mingle guests will have the chance to bid on some awesome packages at our silent auction, including our Music Lover package! This package includes: 

- 2 concert tickets and swag from
- 2 tickets to Verdi’s Requiem from
- 2 tickets for next season at
- Tickets to Eras
- Tickets to

Thank you so much to our incredible donors 🎶

Visit the link in our bio to see the rest of the auction packages available and get tickets to Music + Mingle, to be held at APANO on April 3!

Music + Mingle guests will have the chance to bid on some awesome packages at our silent auction, including our Music Lover package! This package includes: 

- 2 concert tickets and swag from
- 2 tickets to Verdi’s Requiem from
- 2 tickets for next season at
- Tickets to Eras
- Tickets to

Thank you so much to our incredible sponsors 🎶

Visit the link in our bio to see the rest of the auction packages available and get tickets to Music + Mingle, to be held at APANO on April 3!