Gastón San Cristobal
Gastón is general director of the Nikyokan performing arts cultural center in Buenos Aires (Argentina), artistic director of the wadaiko and Japanese music ensemble Nikyokan Wadaiko and he is the co-founder of the magazine “Esto es Taiko”.
He has been practicing wadaiko since 2008 During this period he has trained with taiko icons worldwide and also dedicated a lot of effort researching the instrument, its origins and the influence that the culture and history of Japan had on the art of wadaiko.
He has given talks and lectures of the history of South American taiko in Argentina, Peru, the United States and Japan. His effort and dedication has been recognized by legends of the art of wadaiko such as Eitetsu Hayashi, Akitoshi Asano (Asano Taiko), Yoshihiko Miyamoto (Miyamoto Unosuke Shoten) and founding members of the KODO group.
Gastón has lived in Japan from 2014 to 2017, which changed his perspective 180 degrees on how to interpret, learn, understand and transmit not only wadaiko but also traditional Japanese arts.
During his entire stay in Japan he was a member of the Tokimeki Taiko Juku group of the University of Tsukuba and an apprentice of Yuji Kuramochi (formed in the KODO apprentice center) who trained him in the execution and in the teaching of wadaiko and shinobue. He has also trained with Grandmaster Eitetsu Hayashi, who considers him his apprentice. Additionally, he has trained and been heavily influenced by Kaoru Watanabe, Ryutaro Kaneko, Chieko Kojima, Yoshikazu Fujimoto, Yuta Kato, and the KODO group.