Reminder—Taiko Performance Tomorrow 10/12 Saturday @ 3 PM at Broad Street Park

Just a quick reminder for tomorrow’s performance by the Burlington Taiko.

We hope that you’ll join us tomorrow!

Stay well, be happy, keep being creative, and see you at our next event!

Burlington Taiko Performance

Burlington Taiko Group

Saturday, October 12, 2024 @ 3:00 PM — 4:30 PM
Broad Street Park
Broad Street, Claremont NH

Join us as our friends the Burlington Taiko Group returns to Claremont for an afternoon outdoor performance.

In case of inclement weather, the event location will be at the Claremont Creative Center, 56 Opera House Square, right across the street from Broad Street Park.

Since its inception in 1987, Burlington Taiko Group has been involved in hundreds of performances, including feature performances at the 100th running of the Boston Marathon, annual performances at Burlington’s First Night, the Joseph Campbell – Keepers of the Lore festival, the Black Ships Festival in Newport, Rhode Island, and over 200 corporate, collegiate and public performances.

Taiko (太鼓) are a broad range of Japanese percussion instruments. In Japanese, the term taiko refers to any kind of drum, but outside Japan, it is used specifically to refer to any of the various Japanese drums called wadaiko (和太鼓, lit. ‘Japanese drums’) and to the form of ensemble taiko drumming more specifically called kumi-daiko (組太鼓, lit. ‘set of drums’). The process of constructing taiko varies between manufacturers, and the preparation of both the drum body and skin can take several years depending on the method.

Funded in part by the New England States Touring program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts Regional Touring Program and the six New England state arts agencies.

More info here >


SAVE THE DATE for more events in October

10/19 SAT 11AM — Food Comics for Beginners with Wayne Carter @ CCC

10/25 FRI 4PM — Songwriting Workshop with Myra Flynn @ CCC

10/25 FRI 7PM — Myra Flynn concert @ CCC


Have you missed previous concerts? Watch them on our YouTube Channel!


Thank you for your continued support!
We look forward to sharing a great summer with you in 2024.

See you at our next event!
Support the WCCMA

Japanese Taiko drumming returns! Burlington Taiko Group Workshops and an outdoor performance!

Wow, it went from hot to cool really fast, didn’t it? The fall is upon us and you know what that means—Taiko drums!

Please check the location for each of the events!
Concert tickets by Sliding Scale donation (pay what you can). Students FREE.

Stay well, be happy, keep being creative, and see you at our next event!

Alexander Hawkins & Taylor Ho Bynum Duo at the Claremont Creative Center, 9/25/24

Claremont Taiko Club (+Introduction to Taiko)

Stuart Paton of Burlington Taiko

Thursday, October 3 & 10th, 2024 @ 6:30 — 8:45 PM
Intro Taiko 10/3 @ 6:30—7:15 PM
Claremont Creative Center

56 Opera House Square Claremont, NH

Come drum with us! Have you played Taiko before? Or do you want to try Taiko drumming?

Join us for the Claremont Taiko Club (+Introduction to Taiko,) with Stuart Paton from the Burlington Taiko, where we share drumming and stories about Japanese culture and history.

No experience is required.

This program is supported in part by the New England States Touring program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts Regional Touring Program and the six New England state arts agencies.

More info here >


Burlington Taiko Performance

Burlington Taiko Group

Saturday, October 12, 2024 @ 3:00 — 4:30PM
Broad Street Park
Broad Street, Claremont NH

Join us as our friends the Burlington Taiko Group returns to Claremont for an afternoon outdoor performance.

In case of inclement weather, the event location will be at the Claremont Creative Center, 56 Opera House Square, right across the street from Broad Street Park.

Since its inception in 1987, Burlington Taiko Group has been involved in hundreds of performances, including feature performances at the 100th running of the Boston Marathon, annual performances at Burlington’s First Night, the Joseph Campbell – Keepers of the Lore festival, the Black Ships Festival in Newport, Rhode Island, and over 200 corporate, collegiate and public performances.

Taiko (太鼓) are a broad range of Japanese percussion instruments. In Japanese, the term taiko refers to any kind of drum, but outside Japan, it is used specifically to refer to any of the various Japanese drums called wadaiko (和太鼓, lit. ‘Japanese drums’) and to the form of ensemble taiko drumming more specifically called kumi-daiko (組太鼓, lit. ‘set of drums’). The process of constructing taiko varies between manufacturers, and the preparation of both the drum body and skin can take several years depending on the method.

Funded in part by the New England States Touring program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts Regional Touring Program and the six New England state arts agencies.

More info here >


SAVE THE DATE for more events in October

10/19 SAT 11AM — Food Comics for Beginners with Wayne Carter @ CCC

10/25 FRI 4PM — Songwriting Workshop with Myra Flynn @ CCC

10/25 FRI 7PM — Myra Flynn concert @ CCC


Have you missed previous concerts? Watch them on our YouTube Channel!


Thank you for your continued support!
We look forward to sharing a great summer with you in 2024.

See you at our next event!
Support the WCCMA

Step back in time with the Newmont Military Band; new music by jazz duo Alexander Hawkins & Taylor Ho Bynum Duo

Newmont Military Band

September 22, 2024 @ 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM at Union Episcopal Church (outside)

Join us from the annual Newmont Military Band concert, a fundraiser to support the WCCMA’s community arts programs. Newmont is a local gem, a band group that performs on period instruments keeping the tradition and history of the 19th Century town band tradition alive. Bring your own chair or blanket, rain location inside the Union Episcopal Church. Admission is by freewill donation, all funds benefit West Claremont Center for Music and the Arts’ community arts programs.

More information


Alexander Hawkins & Taylor Ho Bynum Duo

September 25, 2024 @ 6:30 PM to 7:30 PM at Claremont Creative Center

Join us for this special duo concert at the Claremont Creative Center! Alexander Hawkins and Taylor Ho Bynum have collaborated for nearly twenty years, initially in the Convergence Quartet, and subsequently also in groups led by Bynum and Anthony Braxton. Despite these many years of a shared and complimentary aesthetic, however, this tour – featuring new compositions from both players – represents their first extended work as a duo, as well as their first performances in North America.

This program is presented by the West Claremont Center for Music and the Arts, and presented at the Claremont Creative Center in downtown Claremont, NH. Admission is by sliding scale donation, suggested at $10-40 (pay what you can).

Alexander Hawkins is a composer, pianist, and organist who is ‘unlike anything else in modern creative music’. Regarded as one of his generation’s most innovative thinkers, his music has been said by The Guardian newspaper to sound ‘like all the future jazz you might imagine without ever being able to conceive of the details.’ Amongst his many other activities (which range from solo concerts to larger-scale commissions), he is also a committed performer in the duo format, in which he has appeared live and on record with Sofia Jernberg, Nicole Mitchell, Evan Parker, Tomeka Reid, Hamid Drake, Esperanza Spalding, Angelica Niescier, John Surman, Wadada Leo Smith, and Han Bennink, amongst many others. Other collaborations have included with the likes of Marshall Allen, Anthony Braxton, Shabaka Hutchings, Joe McPhee, and Jonny Greenwood. For well over a decade, he has also been noted for his performances in the bands of legendary South African drummer, Louis Moholo-Moholo, and Ethio-jazz pioneer Mulatu Astatke. He has been widely commissioned, by the likes of the BBC, events such as the London and Berlin Jazz Festivals, venues such as the Pierre Boulez Saal, and contemporary music groups such as the Riot Ensemble. He was named ‘Instrumentalist of the Year’ in the 2016 Parliamentary Jazz Awards. In 2018, he was elected a fellow of the Civitella Ranieri. www.alexanderhawkinsmusic.com

Taylor Ho Bynum is a musician, teacher, and writer, with a background including work in composition, performance, interdisciplinary collaboration, production, organizing, and advocacy. His expressionistic playing on cornet and other brass instruments, his expansive vision as composer and conductor, and his idiosyncratic improvisational approach have been documented on over twenty recordings as a bandleader and over a hundred as a sideperson. His past endeavors include his Acoustic Bicycle Tours (where he traveled to concerts solely by bike across thousands of miles) and his stewardship of Anthony Braxton’s Tri-Centric Foundation (which he served as executive director from 2010-2018, producing and performing on many major Braxton projects, including two operas, multiple festivals, and dozens of recordings). Bynum has worked with other legendary figures such as Bill Dixon and Cecil Taylor and currently enjoys playing with friends in collective ensembles like his duo with Tomas Fujiwara, Illegal Crowns (with Fujiwara, Benoit Delbecq, and Mary Halvorson), and Geometry (with Kyoko Kitamura, Tomeka Reid, and Joe Morris), and as a sideperson in groups led by Fujiwara, Reid, Jim Hobbs, Bill Lowe, Bill Cole, and William Parker. His writing has been published in The New Yorker, The Baffler, Point of Departure and Sound American, and he has been the director of the Coast Jazz Orchestra at Dartmouth College since 2017. www.taylorhobynum.com

More information