You hear the beat before you even step inside — a low, rolling rhythm you also feel underfoot as you walk past. Inside the Children’s Museum at its AAPI Heritage Celebration, that thunder is Taiko drumming by Takumi Kato. He leads his musical family: a father and his three sons, pouring every ounce of energy into the beat.
Takumi stands in the center, arms a blur of energy, sweat streaming down his face as he focuses on the drums that carried him across oceans and decades. His three kids — Sogen, 13, Ryoma, 11, and Yamato, 8 — are right there with him, their hands moving in sync, eyes darting to their dad for guidance.
On the sidelines, their mother, Izuna Kato, kneels low, a watchful eye behind her DSLR. She acts as manager, publicist, and official family documentarian, capturing every glorious, sweat-soaked moment that marks this family’s journey.
Just when you thought the show couldn’t get any more joyful, Ryoma and Yamato hop off the drums and into a red-and-gold lion costume. The head, attached to a blue printed cloth, shimmers as they hold it high and dance through the crowd, playfully dipping and nipping at onlookers.
“In the dance, the lion gently bites people’s heads to chase away evil spirits and wish for their health, safety, and happiness,” Takumi tells Pittsburgh City Paper.
For the Katos, the museum performance on May 26 was more than a gig on a calendar. Every performance is part of a bigger mission for the Pittsburgh-based family.
Takumi is a world-champion Taiko drummer from Japan, and he’s currently touring the U.S. with his three kids as Peaceful Forest. So far, the group has performed 450 shows across 33 states. They plan on presenting 1,000 shows across all 50 states.
This Japanese tradition comes from two rituals in Takumi’s hometown. One is a local festival where portable shrines, Taiko drummers, and lion dancers go door-to-door to bring good luck. The other is Shimotsuki Kagura, a 600-year-old ritual to honor the gods.
Performance opportunities come from everywhere: handwritten letters, emails, chance encounters, or someone in the audience inviting them to the next venue. The family performs every other day, on average, and when they’re not on stage, they travel, rehearse, hike, rest, and study.
Peaceful Forest has performed in libraries, parks, temples, schools, and churches. A recent highlight was their 460th performance at Yamato’s elementary school in Pittsburgh. Another milestone was sharing music with Native American communities, including the Suquamish Tribe in Washington and the Fort Washakie community in Wyoming.
“Music transcends language and brings people together,” Takumi says.
Takumi was born in Ena City, a town in central Japan where approximately 80% of the land is covered in forest. His childhood was spent exploring mountains, nurtured by grandparents and music, taking up the violin at age 3. His first brush with Taiko came in kindergarten during a local festival, when he helped carry a mikoshi shrine and struck a drum with small hands. “I didn’t know it then, but that moment stayed with me,” he says.
By high school, he was all in. He joined a top Taiko club, training with semi-pro performers who taught him that Taiko was more than music. “It was rhythm, athleticism, energy. All the things I loved,” he says.
Taiko drums have been part of Japanese culture for over 2,000 years. They were used in religious ceremonies, on battlefields, and believed to connect people to the gods. A famous legend says the goddess Ame-no-Uzume danced on a barrel to lure the sun goddess Amaterasu out of her cave, bringing light back to the world, a story linked to the spiritual power of Taiko.
Kato’s kids were born in Gifu, too, learning to play the drums before they even started walking. “All three of them were introduced to drumming when they were about 9 months old,” he says. “They grew up with the rhythm of the drum as part of their daily heartbeat.”
But his larger mission took shape in the wake of a tragedy that changed the world. In 2001, he came to the U.S. as an exchange student at Bethany College in West Virginia. He was there when the 9/11 attacks happened. “Some of my friends lost family members,” he says. The grief he saw left a mark that stayed with him.
Back in Japan, he turned that pain into purpose, performing monthly peace concerts at Ena railway station, rain or shine. “Through this journey, I realized that the meaning of peace is something America taught me,” he says. “Now I want to give thanks. I promised myself I would help people heal.”
Takumi decided he would play 1,000 Taiko shows across all 50 states. In October 2022, he moved his family to the U.S. on a green card to make that goal a reality. Since then, they’ve played more than 470 shows, sometimes nearly every day. “I gave up all 500 of my annual performances in Japan,” he says. “I left behind more than 100 students, including 40 with disabilities.”
He sold almost everything — his car, motorbike, 17 Taiko drums, household items, jewelry — over 200 items in all, to fund this journey. It was a total leap of faith, driven by a belief that music could bridge divides.
The family started in Ojai, Calif., but high rents and the grind of West Coast living pushed them east. Pittsburgh, to the Katos, felt like a homecoming.
“Twenty-four years ago, when I was a student, a kind family here supported me,” Takumi says. “Now they are helping us again, with everything from education to insurance.”
In addition to his message of peace, Takumi’s goals stand out for their specificity. They’re not vague dreams but a clear roadmap marked by dates and places. He plans to hit his 1,000th performance at Carnegie Hall on March 11, 2028, pay tribute at Ground Zero in New York City on Sept. 11, and close the year at the Los Angeles Olympics Peace Festival.
Yet amid all the travel and the grind, the Katos have built a microcosm of home in Ohio Township, a small piece of Japan transplanted to Pennsylvania. “Our home is surrounded by mountains and forests, just like our hometown,” Takumi says. In the backyard, deer, wild turkeys, and squirrels roam freely. Inside, the family practices Taiko, violin, shinobue flute, and traditional Japanese dance every day. “Every day with full concentration,” he says.
When asked what peace means to him now, after all those shows and miles, Takumi says he is still searching. “Maybe it’s not something we understand right away,” he says. “Maybe it’s something we have to keep doing to really grasp it. But I feel that the sound of Taiko, played with family, might be one expression of peace.”
What happens after the 1,000th show? Takumi wants to keep going, to play in different corners of the world. “Especially for people with disabilities and their families,” he says.
More than anything, he hopes his kids carry that beat forward. “To grow up with a heart full of thankfulness for life, nature, and each other,” he says.
This article appears in Jun 4-10, 2025.
