Learn to Play the Shinobue

Marco Lienhard is the Director of Taikoza and the East Winds Ensemble, two New York City-based professional musical organizations that showcase traditional and contemporary Japanese music and performing arts through numerous concerts and educational programs. Well-known and respected as a gifted composer and solo-performing artist on the Fue, Shakuhachi and Taiko, Marco is also a popular music teacher and recording artist. In 1995, Marco was featured as the Shakuhachi soloist during the New York City Opera's premiere of Toshiro Mayuzumi's opera "Kinkakuji. In 2015, he was the Shakuhachi soloist for the premiere of Hosokawa's "Voyage X" with the Juilliard New Music Ensemble. Marco regularly performs as a solo artist and teaches internationally to students in the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Italy, Switzerland and Canada. He has performed at Carnegie Hall and Madison Square Garden (New York), Suntory Hall and Osaka Festival Hall (Japan), and Tchaikovsky Hall and House of Music (Moscow) among other venues throughout the world. He has performed for corporate and private parties, including Price Waterhouse Cooper, Pepsi, Merck, Diesel, Gillette, etc. Marco has composed and recorded more than 10 CD showcasing Shakuhachi, Taiko and Fue. His music can be heard on iTunes and the Nintendo Wii game: "Red Steel 1 and 2." In 2015, he released two CD of his compositions with Taikoza: "Voice of the Earth" and "Tree Spirit." Marco Lienhard lived in Japan for 18 years (1981-1998) as a member of Ondekoza, the legendary Japanese professional Taiko group, whose members were renowned for completing the Boston Marathon and then energetically playing Taiko for other runners as they crossed the finish line. During his years with Ondekoza, he mastered performing the Taiko, Fue, Noh theater flute and, under the tutelage of Katsuya Yokoyama Sensei, the Shakuhachi. Marco was Ondekoza's principal soloist on the Odaiko, Nagado and Shakuhachi. He was greatly influenced by the stage vision and presentation of Taiko by Ondekoza's acclaimed Founding Director Tagayasu Den, who instigated the renaissance of Taiko and created what modern Taiko is today. From 1990 to 1993, Marco's most remarkable accomplishment for Ondekoza was organizing and running a three-year long, 9,000 mile run around the perimeter of the continental United States in which the group's members, including Marco, ran the entire distance while performing taiko in communities along the journey.