Tatsuya Nakatani
Tatsuya Nakatani is an avant-garde percussionist, composer, and artist of sound. Active internationally since the 1990s, Nakatani has released over 80 recordings and tours extensively, performing over 150 concerts a year. His primary focus is his solo work and his large ensemble project, the Nakatani Gong Orchestra. He teaches master classes and lectures at universities and music conservatories around the world. Originally from Japan, he makes his home in the desert town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. With his activity in new music, improvisation, and experimental music, Nakatani has a long history of collaboration.
Nakatani's distinctive music centered around his adapted bowed gong, supported by an array of drums, cymbals, and singing bowls. In consort with his personally hand-carved Kobo Bows, he has spent decades refining and developing his sound as an arrangement of formations of vibrations, incorporated in shimmering layers of silence and texture. Within this contemporary work, one can still recognize the dramatic pacing, formal elegance and space (ma) felt in traditional Japanese music.
Coming up!
Nakatani Gong Orchestra Training Videos
”THE MAGIC ROOM” CD
Kris Tiner + Tatsuya Nakatani
Release, August 4, 2023 by epigraph records
William Parker
Amazing William’s contrabass solo.
And check out the sound of Nakatani-Kobo, German Grip Bass Bow.
Bowed Gong
This is a very casual sound check clip before the concert at Silo City, Buffalo, NY. Very nice sounding room helps your imagination. Recent released CD, “MONOCHROME,” is based on this way of playing Gong. I built my Bow called Nakatani-Kobo.
This is Tatsuya Nakatani Solo Percussion set up and my large project, Nakatani Gong Orchestra. (The video length is only 36 seconds)
New Nakatani-kobo logo
My friend Makoto Kawabata, leader guitarist from Acid Mothers Temple, has designed it. Now newer Kobo-bows will have a new branding iron mark!
Make a donation
If you come to my shows, purchase my CD, LP, and all other merchandise on my website, help my life directly. But simply donating $ towards Nakatani himself can be fantastic help too. I will be investing this donated money to good use and quicker to solve problems without being stressed about expenses.