Bridging the Gap: The MIYUMI Project

Register for the performance | FREE, open to the public. Space may be limited, please register in advance. This program is presented in collaboration with EXPO CHICAGO.

Enjoy a live performance from Tatsu Aoki’s The MIYUMI Project that illuminates the drum traditions of Japanese taiko and jazz and toast the opening of EXPO ART WEEK with a night of South Side Openings and Events. 

Since the band’s formation two decades ago, Aoki has forged an exceptional and inimitable Afro-Asian musical hybrid. Presented in conjunction with Meiji Modern at the Smart Museum of Art, this performance incorporates the drummer languages of taiko and jazz. The MIYUMI Project fuses the Japanese taiko drumming tradition with first-class improvisers—who mostly herald from Chicago where Aoki has been based since 1979—such as woodwind specialists Ed Wilkerson and Mwata Bowden, experimentalist Jamie Kempkers, Tsukasa Taiko and others.