TAIKO
Upon graduating from Oberlin, Galen moved back to San Francisco and joined Jiten Daiko, a relatively young taiko ensemble based at the Buddhist Church of San Francisco. After being in the ensemble for only four months he became the Artistic Director, and a year later became the Director. He has now been the director of Jiten Daiko since 2014 and in this time has led the group into new expressive territory and initiated collaborations with Balinese music and dance ensemble Gamelan Sekar Jaya, Korean drum and dance ensemble Ong Dance Company, and avant-garde calligraphist Aoi Yamaguchi. Jiten Daiko presents traditional, contemporary, and original work and is a energetic and progressive force within the regional taiko community.
OBERLIN COLLEGE TAIKO
After leaving the Bay Area for Oberlin College, he co-founded Oberlin College Taiko, and discovered his interest in ethnomusicology. It was in this context, surrounded by intellectual, passionate taiko drummers with different artistic backgrounds, that he began to discover the power of taiko as a creative force for building community. Six years after graduating, OCTaiko is still practicing and performing regularly, teaching classes to students and community members, and building on the foundation that Galen and the other co-founders created.
SF TAIKO DOJO
Galen Rogers grew up in San Francisco and began studying taiko at the San Francisco Taiko Dojo when he was eight years old. SFTD is the first taiko school outside of Japan, and was founded by Grand Master Seichi Tanaka in 1968. Galen studied there for ten years, five of them as a member of the Rising Stars, one of the premiere youth groups in the world, studying directly under Tanaka. He performed regularly with SFTD, including annual performances at the International Taiko Festival at Zellerbach Hall, and went on tour to Los Angeles to perform at Rhythmic Relations and to Shasta to perform at ShastaYama Taiko Festival.