Who is Greg Clark?


Greg Clark
center, past head instructor of Wadaiko Newark

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I first discovered Taiko in October of 1996. I was wandering around in Japantown, San Francisco, when I spotted a poster for a Taiko Festival at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley. It was being presented by the San Francisco Taiko Dojo.

I had no idea who SFTD was or what Taiko really was, but I did know it had something to do with Japan and drums. Having a strong attachment to both, I bought tickets and took the family. By the end of the show both my daughter, Stacey, and I were forever hooked!

The following week, we both were in South San Francisco at the Taiko Dojo signing up for classes.

After a number of months of commuting from the East Bay to South San Francisco during evening rush hour traffic, we switched to The Oakland Taiko Group, a sub-group of SFTD. While I still had to deal with rush hour traffic, the commute was much easier.

Stacey and I spent the next three years studying under the watchful eye of Sensei Susan Horn. During that time the group moved and changed its name from the Oakland Taiko Group to Emeryville Taiko. It was at Emeryville Taiko that I first learned how to build Taiko. Under the expert direction of Emeryville's head drum builder, Jenny Fuss, I built my first taiko!

Several drum building years later, I was delighted when chosen to rebuild Sensei Tanaka's own personal Okedo. This was Tanaka's first taiko drum in the United States and the only drum that the San Francisco Taiko Dojo had in the very early days. The rebuilding required a complete replacement of the heads, steel stretching rings and all.

Luckily, through Taiko I had become friends with Rolling Thunder's David Leong.

David was running the only full time Taiko supply business in the West at that time and he allowed me to use his ring roller. Little did I know that a few years later I would buy that same ring roller from him when he closed his shop.

It was a great honor for me to present the rebuilt Okedo to Sensei Tanaka and Mr Miyamoto, the original builder, at yet another Zellerbach Taiko Festival.

Some while after this, a small Taiko group at the Southern Alameda County Buddhist Church in nearby Union City asked me to come and teach them. With Susan-san's permission, I became the head instructor of what was to become O Nami Taiko.

Greg Clark, in red, past head instructor of O Nami Taiko



In 2002, a group of members left the Onami Taiko group to form a new group, Wadaiko Newark. I was the head instructor of this new and exciting performing ensemble for about three years.

In late 2002, the Wadaiko Newark players and I went to Japan to spend two weeks studying Taiko with Sensei Kurumaya Masaaki in Miyama, Fukui, Japan.



In March of 2005 I took 12 Taiko enthusiasts to the Nagano Prefecture of Japan to study with American Taiko Artist Art Lee and his group, Tokara. During this trip, we also had the wonderful experience of spending a day studying and playing with the father of modern Taiko - Grand Master Oguchi Diahachi at his Dojo. During that visit I had the great honor of being presented a Taiko head from one of Oguchi Sensei's performance drums with Japanses calligraphy done by him on it.





In 2003, I retired from 20 years of full time active practice as a Chiropractor and my wife and I moved to the great state of Alabama. Since moving, I have started yet another Taiko group, Chambers County Taiko in Lanett Alabama. Chambers County Taiko info
Check back and see how the new group is doing - Y'all hear?

You can email me at:
gclark@taiko.us