User:31N2024/sandbox/Franco Imperial

Franco Imperial is a Filipino American musician and composer, and leading player of North American taiko. He is artistic director and member of San Jose Taiko, one of the founding groups of North American taiko.

Personal Life
Franco Imperial was born in Troy, Michigan, while his parents completed their medical residency. He was the fourth out of five children. Shortly after his younger brother was born, the family moved to Lake Jackson, Texas, a suburb of Houston. As a child, Imperial did sports, and music, and was a boy scout. He also drummed and played for a Samba group from San Antonio. In college, he was a drummer for a rock band. After college, he moved to the Bay Area and found kulintang, a Southern Filipino percussion tradition, and taiko. He studied with a master kulintang player, NEA Heritage Fellow Danongan Kalanduyan. He later chose to pursue taiko over kulintang.

Imperial has been an activist in the Japanese-American community. During the height of anti-Asian-American hate in 2021, which was a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, he volunteered to perform civilian patrols in San Jose, California’s Japan Town.

Taiko
Franco Imperial joined San Jose Taiko as a performing member in 1998. He then joined the San Jose artistic staff in 2000. In 2011, after the retirement of PJ Hirabayashi and Roy Hirabayashi, Imperial became the artistic director at San Jose Taiko. His previous percussion experience included experience as a symphonic percussionist, marching snare player, and orchestral timpanist, training in Samba, kulintang,, and trap set.

Imperial joined San Jose Taiko for the drumming but stayed for the community. Since he joined San Jose Taiko, Imperial has led workshops for the North American Taiko Conference, European Taiko Conference, Intercollegiate Taiko Invitational, Calgary Taiko Gathering and has become a member of the Multicultural Arts Leadership Institute.

Imperial has created over 20 different pieces during his time with San Jose Taiko. As artistic director, he led San Jose Taiko's collaborations with many other groups, including the Abinaya Dance Company, John Santos, Danongan Kalanduyan, Dan Sabanovich, The Bangerz, Epic Immersive, the Aswat Ensemble, and Jeff Rosenstock. He has also led several outreach projects, including an educational project for elementary, middle, and high school, and a program at Fox City for children who are hard of hearing.

Awards and Honors
Franco Imperial has received numerous awards and honors for his contributions to the North American taiko community. These include becoming an Alliance for California Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program recipient in 2010 and part of the World Arts West's NextGen Leadership Group for the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival 2014. In 2019, Imperial was selected to be a Creative License Ambassador by the City of San Jose Office of Cultural Affairs, and as an instructor for the 2019 Pacific Creative Placemaking Leadership Summit in Los Angeles. He also served as a speaker on audience engagement in 2013 and 2019 at the Engage.next Conferences in San Jose.