A taste of Japanese cultural music and arts had students from Leifiifi College marvelling at the impressive performance put on by the Wadaiko Rindo traditional drumming group based in Australia.

The group found that the Samoan students were more musically inclined than 80 per cent of all the Australian schools they had visited.

The group was invited by the Embassy of Japan to showcase and hopefully inspire students with their traditional drumming arts.

Toshinori Sakamoto, the leader of the troupe led them in a thundering performance that sent the children roaring with excitement and applause.

According to Mr. Sakamoto, the traditional Japanese drums were brought over to Japan by the Chinese over 150 years ago and have become part of their culture and religious practices.

Sayaka Ohno and Yukiko Shoya are two of the three female band members and are particularly grateful for the love the children showed them during their performance.

“We were invited by the Japanese government to come here and talk about Japanese culture and our traditional music and share it with Samoa. This is the first one of three schools and we are so pleased that the children enjoyed our drumming,” said Ms. Shoya.

The students were given the opportunity to have a go at the drumming and had the rest of the school roaring in laughter at the comedic display by their fellow students.

“It was great, we heard the kids sing and they were fantastic. They are so good at drumming and we were so surprised," said Ms. Ohno. "Normally in Australia 80 per cent of the schools we’ve been to can’t follow the rhythm, and here they could follow and we even had to make it a little harder for them to follow.

School principal Sifuiva Malaea Lauano expressed appreciation for the time the Japanese group took to visit her school.

“I am thankful that our school was one of their choices. This is a great opportunity for our school to see this talent and hopefully inspire some of them to pursue music or perhaps drumming. All our children have their talents and we want them to discover them and use them,” she said.