Timothy Harada

Born as Timothy Gianakos in the mountains of Big Bear, California to hippy parents, who were escaping the civilized world, Timothy Harada grew up surrounded by music. His mother’s love for classic rock and especially David Bowie, gave him the dream at a very young age to be a singer/song writer and musician.

His mother joined Soka Gakkai International (SGI-an international lay Buddhist organization, which focuses it’s activities on promoting peace, culture and education) before he turned 1 year old (against his father's wishes (which eventually led to their divorce 2 years later).

Timothy’s courageous, Buddhist mother raised Timothy and his older brother for 7 years as a single parent. It was from her that they both developed their strong practice of Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism.

Timothy had his debut musical performance with the SGI Junior Pioneers (an SGI kids organization) where at age 6 he was scheduled to perform on the recorder at the Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles (However, he lost the recorder at a practice before the show and had to go on stage playing air recorder. Luckily he survived the stage fright to continue his music career).

Growing up too poor to get private music lessons, Timothy first learned to play music in the SGI Brass Band, where at age 10 he began playing the trumpet and performed his first parade in Washington DC at age 11.

It was at this young age, when he first read an essay by Daisaku Ikeda, written for the SGI brass band that he confirmed his dream to be a musician for world peace and to, as Daisaku Ikeda wrote in the essay, “spread [his] music to all corners of the world [for the sake of peace].”

Despite his upbringing in the Soka Gakkai, like many youth, Timothy went through his very rebellious days in elementary school and junior high school, where he didn’t do well in school and where he smoked marijuana on a regular basis. Despite this short hiatus from his dreams to change the world, during this rebellious time he was able to gain a lot of experience in what the youth of America have to live through. That delinquent time in his life became the subject of his novel, Myth Shattering, where a young punk rock kid changes his life with his discovery of Buddhism.

Despite this rebellious time, Timothy’s love of music caused him to join the symphonic band in Junior High School, where he learned to read music and play the saxophone at age 13.

On his own, he later picked up the guitar, piano (no, he didn’t literally “pick it up,” it was too heavy), and French horn at about age 16.

In the SGI Brass Band, he performed in many world peace cultural festivals: in Hawaii at age 14, in San Diego at age 15, in Seattle, Washington at age 17. (He was scheduled to perform at Madison Square Garden’s in New York, with the brass band at age 16, but he wasn’t able to get the money together, even though he practiced the music and routine with the brass band up until a week before they left to New York).

In high school and college, he sung and played in many musical groups (jazz bands, rock bands, a gospel chorus, a salsa band, chamber singers, symphonic bands, marching bands, and more) and he began writing his own music about 12 years ago.

He has thus far, written over 30 original songs. His song lyrics reflect his Buddhist belief in the unlimited potential of each human being to transform their life and the world in a positive way.

Outside of school, he was a sax player in a hippy-trippy, funk music band called Zumbuladelic, where he did many shows in Hollywood and throughout Southern California.

One of the songs on his first demo tape, “Song of Triumph” was featured on Orange County, California’s KSBR Radio’s “Local Artist Spot Light.”

The highlight of his Orange County, California music life was for 3 years he played throughout Southern California, Big Bear and on Catalina Island in a 3 piece original and classic rock/acoustic band called “Stranger’s Milk,” where he gained the confidence to eventually start playing solo original gigs, singing and playing piano and guitar.

Throughout his many years in College, Timothy supplemented his school study by reading almost every book of Daisaku Ikeda’s he could get a hold of (or that was translated into English at the time), which led to his dream to along with being a singer/songwriter and musician, to also be a writer of many books.

He finished writing his first novel before getting accepted into the first class of Soka University of America in Orange County California in 2001, and he has since also published most of his writings from Soka University of America (which have now been published in over 3 volumes, amounting to well over 1,000 pages).

After doing a study-abroad program in Japan, where he played his first concerts in Japan and where he met his wife, and after graduating with honors in the 1st class of Soka University of America in 2005, Timothy packed up his bags