The Kaua‘i High School band boosters are looking for families to help host the Tachibana High School Brass & Marching Band. Under the direction of music director, Hiroyuki Tanaka, 99 members of the award-winning Kyoto band will be returning to
The Kaua‘i High School band boosters are looking for families to help host the Tachibana High School Brass & Marching Band.
Under the direction of music director, Hiroyuki Tanaka, 99 members of the award-winning Kyoto band will be returning to Kaua‘i for its fourth goodwill performing tour Aug. 15-19.
Host families are needed to host the students from Aug. 16-18 for two days of home stay experience.
The Kyoto Tachibana High School Brass & Marching Band has won numerous awards in high school competitions and is considered the best marching band in western Japan.
The band was invited and performed at the Rose Bowl Parade in Pasedena, Calif.
Since 1998, the band has performed on Kaua‘i every three years, performing in locations like the Coconut Marketplace and the Kukui Grove Shopping Center where it stopped shoppers with its musical strength and marching prowess.
The first two visits consisted of only girl members since Kyoto Tachibana was an all-girl private school. But since 1999, the school has become a coed institution. In 2004, the band consisted of one boy band member. This year, that number has increased to include nine male members and 90 female students.
Kaua‘i Mayor Bryan Baptiste, on his tour of Japan in 2004, was the recipient of a special tribute when he departed from his official tour to pay a courtesy visit to Kyoto Tachibana High School campus.
This will be the first time that the Kyoto Tachibana High School band will be spending its entire Hawai‘i trip on Kaua‘i instead of spending a day in Honolulu.
While here, the band will perform for a special fundraising concert Aug. 16 that will benefit the Kaua‘i High School band program. That concert will be held at the Kaua‘i War Memorial Convention Hall.
Robert Kawamura, who has been helping handle some of the arrangements for the band’s visitation, said the concert is made possible through the support and cooperation of Baptiste, the Kaua‘i Visitors Bureau, the Governor’s Kaua‘i liason, and the Kaua‘i Aloha Beach Resort.
For more information, or to become a host family, contact Kawamura at 652-9615, or e-mail robert@kawamurafarm.com.
