Interview: multi-percussionist Patrick Graham talks music, sound, and groove

photo by Randy Cole

Recently I talked with Patrick Graham, a Montréal based percussionist who is doing really interesting work. The first time I heard Patrick perform live was in 2009 at the North American Taiko Conference (Los Angeles) evening concert as a guest artist with On Ensemble. I was immediately drawn to his playing and have become an even bigger fan as I've heard more of his music over the past seven years. In this interview, I asked Patrick about his background, musical training, his concept of sound and groove, and composing. His thoughtful conversation is in symmetry with his music so I would encourage everyone to check out the web links below for video, music, and additional details about his work.

Patrick's musical background and interests have a lot of overlap with my own. No wonder it was so much fun playing with him for an On Ensemble concert in the summer of 2014. It was one of those rare occasions where the music just comes together right from the beginning, as comfortably as if we had always worked together. It's a feeling that is hard to describe; maybe something like speaking the same dialect of our musical language. I also enjoy just hanging out with Patrick and talking about music or whatever. We live pretty far away from each other but I'm pretty sure we'll be collaborating in the near future. Here are some samples:

Patrick and Eien Project

I have included music from Rheo, Patrick's album which came up in our conversation. The tracks excerpted in the interview are: King Worm, Liminality, Le Souffle M'envahit, Brilla, and Strata. It's a great album and I would recommend everyone checking it out at the links below.

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From Patrick:
"I've been so fortunate to study with many fantastic teachers. I am indebted to them.
Bob Slapcoff at Vanier College, Pierre Béluse and D'Arcy Gray at McGill University, Trichy Sankaran, Glen Velez, Tokyo-based sensei Taichi Ozaki (stage name Kato Tosha), Kodo's Tomohiro Mitome led the taiko Koh-Kan workshops in 2000, Tetsuro Naito, Carlo Rizzo and Zohar Fresco."
 

Links
Patrick's website
Patrick's youtube
Patrick's vimeo
Rheo on iTunes
Rheo on CD Baby

Interview: Alcvin Ryuzen Ramos talks about shakuhachi and working together

During my time in Vancouver (Canada) Alcvin Ryuzen Ramos was the musician I worked with most often.  Our group Maru performed in concerts, festivals, and collaborative projects with guest artists around British Columbia and Washington.  Alcvin's huge sound and strong personal expression is a great match for taiko and other percussion accompaniment.  Because both of us love to improvise, our music features open structures where we can create in the moment. 

In the interview, Alcvin talks about his background, important teachers, the categories of shakuhachi, his roots pilgrimage trip to Japan, collaborating with other artists, and the music we made together.  I have included some of Maru's music along with the conversation: Esashi Oiwake (Hokkaido traditional), improvisation on a fast groove, Sakura (traditional), Madake Grooves (Alcvin's piece), vibes & shakuhachi improvisation, and Wara (Eien's piece). 
 

Interview: Colleen Lanki of TomoeArts on kabuki and collaborating

My friend and Vancouver-based dancer, director, writer, and teacher Colleen Lanki was in town for the final performance of Portland State University's kabuki production Chushingura.  She is the artistic director of TomoeArts, "a dance theatre company that works between traditions and disciplines" and regularly produces some of the most intriguing and original work I've seen.  Colleen kindly agreed to join me in my studio where we talked about the kabuki play, her training in Japan, thoughts on collaborating, and the various projects we worked on together.  Included in this recording is music I composed for two of the productions mentioned in the interview - EN: a raincity street dance and Voices of Hiroshima.  Working with Colleen has been fun and rewarding especially because we were able to create a number of different shows together.  Finding like-minded artists is not as common as I would like, so I'm happy when opportunities arise to work with someone like Colleen.

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Colleen's website
TomoeArts website
TomoeArts youtube
TomoeArts facebook
TomoeArts flickr
 

Voices of Hiroshima

EN3: Community Circles

EN: a raincity street dance

EN: The Procession of Performing Circles

My interview with TaikoSource has been posted

I recently had the opportunity to talk about music in an interview with Ben Pachter of TaikoSource.  The website is a good resource for taiko-related articles, interviews, song database, and more.  Ben asked me about my approach to composing for mixed ensembles, collaborative process, pedagogy, and how I navigate crossing over from Japanese instruments to western percussion.  There are a handful of other interviews already posted and I would encourage anyone to check them out for a closer look into these taiko players and teachers.

Here is the interview

Let me know if you listened and have any comments on what was talked about.  Do you agree, disagree, or see things from another perspective?