When Matthew Howard first started playing the drums as a teenager in his Culver City taiko group, he had no idea that he wanted to pursue music for a living. The camaraderie, instruments, and a true love for performance changed his mind.

Now the Principal Percussionist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Howard is diving back into his musical and cultural roots with a new percussion concerto written just for him called Naru.

Composed by Joseph Pereira—the LA Phil’s Principal Timpanist, Cecilia and Dudley Rauch Chair, and one of Howard’s former teachers—the concerto draws on the Japanese word for “becoming” and the idea that everything is continuously evolving.

“Matt is half Japanese, so that immediately got me thinking about identity as the central idea of this new work,” Pereira said. “It’s the perfect concept for a concerto because there’s a soloist going back and forth with a larger group of people and finding out how they complement and shape each other.”

The concerto features an incredible range of instruments, from taiko drums and wood blocks to a water phone and electronic mallet sampler. Ahead of its world premiere, Howard and Pereira took us inside the percussion room at Walt Disney Concert Hall to demonstrate some of the coolest sounds and techniques of Naru.