When Leo Konno was first introduced to the koto, he was struggling to communicate with his fourth-grade classmates at Yokohama International School.

Konno is Japanese and American, but he spoke only Japanese at home and struggled with English. Then, one day in music class, the young boy met American koto teacher Curtis Patterson.

“I could barely express myself in English and my shy personality made it even harder for me to communicate through words,” says the now 23-year-old Konno. “However, my encounter with the instrument made me realize that there are other ways to communicate and connect with people. You can still have conversations through music and convey messages to your audiences, and that made me feel like I had found the missing piece of a puzzle.”