At an incredible 17 meters tall, the Echizen Daibutsu Giant Buddha at Daishizan Seidai-ji Temple in Katsuyama City, Fukui Prefecture is the tallest seated Buddha statue in Japan. It is the image of Birushana Nyorai, one of the earliest Buddhist deities to arrive in the country in the 6^th Century. The Buddha is flanked by four standing Bodhisattva statues which are surrounded by more than a thousand smaller stone statues. Each day, for just one hour after the temple gates are opened and one hour before closing, an artificial sea of clouds is generated, creating an enchanted atmosphere for all visitors. 

At this sacred location in November 2023, internationally acclaimed, Grammy and Golden Globe winning keyboardist/composer and new age music icon Kitaro and his ensemble celebrated the 35^th anniversary of the temple’s founding. They created an electrifying, soul-stirring performance of some of his most beloved and renowned compositions, several rarely played classics, and a powerfully hypnotic new original titled “Prayer for Mother Earth,” featuring the artist playing the taiko drum. “Taiko drumming has always had a special connection to me,” says Kitaro, a native of Toyohashi, Aichi, Japan. “The sound the Taiko drum created as it reverberated throughout the temple was otherworldly. It seemed the best way to begin the concert.” 

For the hundreds of thousands of Kitaro fans worldwide who were unable to attend this special event, the two disc CD/DVD set Zen: Live in Katsuyama, puts listeners and viewers at the heart of the ever-fascinating visual and sonic action. While the physical CD includes 12 tracks, the Deluxe Edition released to streaming outlets includes the additional pieces “Monks Prayer” and “Koi” which are also included on the DVD. In addition to Kitaro’s dynamics filled performance before the Great Buddha statue, the DVD contains stunning footage of the temple and its surrounding grounds, including a five-story pagoda, the tallest in Japan. The package marks his 30^th anniversary on Domo Records, a span that began with the release of his Grammy nominated label debut Mandala in 1994.   

Heavily influenced by American rock and R&B, Kitaro’s revolutionary fusion of electronic artistry, traditional Japanese music and song forms and pop-flavored Western styles evolved into a lush, poetic, alternately intimate and expansive sound. In 1984, a year before entering into a worldwide distribution arrangement with Geffen Records, he toured in Asia as the first ever Japanese-born musician who performed in Taiwan and China. 

Testament to his ability to transfix his live audiences since launching his recording career in the late 70s with the release of Ten Kai (later re-released on Geffen in the mid-80s as Astral Voyage), Zen: Live in Katsuyama is Kitaro’s ninth live album. It’s an amazing run that began with In Person/In Person Digital (1980) and most recently includes Symphony Live in Istanbul (2014), recorded with a 38-piece symphony orchestra and his five-member band, which earned Kitaro his 17^th Grammy nomination for Best New Age album. That concert opened with a 14-minute performance of his Golden Globe winning score from the 1992 Oliver Stone film Heaven & Earth. While still creating an epic sound, he takes a more intimate approach on the new collection. 

“I performed the Live at Katsuyama concert with three other musicians,” Kitaro says, “and it was an exciting challenge to find a way to create many of my sounds that a larger ensemble would traditionally do for a performance like this. My band included Shizuka Kashima on violin, Norimaru on percussion and Hiroshi Araki on guitar. I have a long history with Hiroshi Araki, who has performed on my albums Kojiki, The Light Of The Spirit which featured Mickey Hart from the Grateful Dead and Dream, the one I did with Jon Anderson in 1992. I have performed with him live since the early 1980’s. Yurika Shibano was the Butoh dancer that visually interpreted the performance for us.”

After the opening pieces “Prayer For Mother Earth” and “Monks Prayer” – which Kitaro explains as “saying a prayer in contemplation and appreciation” – he launches the heart of the program with the solo flute piece “Mercury” (from his 1999 Grammy winning album Thinking of You) and stops along the “Silk Road,” an epic, nearly eight minute journey that has been a foundational element of Kitaro’s ever-evolving artistry for over 40 years. He wrote the score to a groundbreaking 1980 documentary series titled The Silk Road: The Rise and Fall of Civilizations, which revealed how ancient Japan was influenced by the Silk Road trade route; the music was commercially released as Silk Road, Volume 1 and 2. “Silk Road was a song that connected me with many cultures and nations around the world,” Kitaro says. “I will always appreciate the many positive ways this song has connected me to so many people and so many people to each other.”  

Following the dreamy, lyrical, violin highlighted “Aqua” (from Kitaro’s third solo album Oasis), he performs the exotic, sweeping, synth-orchestrated “Requiem,” a highlight from the fourth recording in his five-volume Domo Records series Sacred Journey of Ku-Kai, which extends from 2003 thru 2017. It is a series of peace-themed albums inspired by the Shikoku Henro Pilgrimage – the travel of the beloved monk Kukai more than 1100 years ago. Each track contains samples from ancient Japanese temple bells (Peace Bells) from 88 sacred temples on the island of Shikoku, Japan. In conjunction with the Ku-Kai series, Kitaro launched a “Love and Peace World Tour” which found him sharing his goal for world peace everywhere from Greece and Mexico to India, China, Jakarta and Uruguay.

Domo Records will soon be releasing another live album entitled Kukai 1250, from a show Kitaro performed with Hiroki Okano at the Zentsuji Temple in Shikoku, Japan. It commemorates the 1250^th anniversary of the birth of Kukai in the place of his birth. The recording features songs individually composed by Kitaro and Hiroki, in addition to several collaborations. 

The core of the Zen – Live in Katsuyama experience are five pieces from his Grammy nominated #1 Billboard New Age hit album Kojiki, which was released in 1990 and featured the string section from the Skywalker Symphony. These include the mystical “Hajimari,” the intricate, beautifully melodic “Sozo,” the dramatic adventure “Orochi,” the explosive, empowering “Matsuri” and the dreamy, symphonic closer “Reimei.”

“All of these are songs I enjoy performing live,” Kitaro says. “And I enjoy performing the compositions that my fans love to hear and have a special connection with.”