The drummers of Kodo return to Hill Auditorium on Wednesday.

Taro Nishita

They’re about to bring out the big drums.

Yes, it’s time for another visit from the renowned Japanese drumming troupe Kodo, whose sinewy men and women appear at Hill Auditorium Wednesday. It’s the group’s 22nd appearance here under University Musical Society auspices since 1982. If UMS is looking for a group with strong ties to its presenting program for its Distinguished Artist Award, Kodo surely qualifies.

Why so many visits? Did I mention those sinewy men and women? Or the spectacular appeal of watching them pound away rhythmically on an orchestra of drums, some as large as the 800-pound-plus o-daiko, carved from a single tree trunk? (This year’s show includes the debut of the youthful Kenta Nakagome on the group’s hallmark giant drum.) All that’s part of the group’s appeal, for sure, as well as solid production values and the complexity of the music they produce.

But there is more. In any hall, but especially one with great acoustics like Hill, those drums — giant resonators — are mightily impressive. But not just for their sound. You feel them in your body, a resonator in itself; it’s a remarkable experience.

Kodo was founded on the remote Japanese island of Sado in 1972, and it has trained and lived there communally ever since. But much has changed in the company since its inception, and its “One Earth” tours — which take their name from the idea that wherever the drum is heard, people constitute a community — are constantly changing as well.

One major change for the group was the inclusion of women as drummers — a turning point for the group, said company member Jun Akimoto in an interview when the company last performed here, in 2009.

Another change is the inevitable result of touring and exposure to other drumming traditions. The last show included rhythms of Spain and West Africa. This time around, several pieces new to North America—including “Sora” and “Stride”—show how taiko can find common ground between unexpected musical territories. Kodo composers draw on the Irish beats they heard on a European tour and the samba reggae that caught their ear in northeastern Brazil. But Sado Island is also an inspiration for the group.

Watch a video teaser of Kodo's 2011 tour:

The world-premiere original work that opens Kodo’s North American performances evokes the bond between the ensemble and its island home. “Sakaki,” composed by Kodo member Masaru Tsuji, takes its name from a sacred tree used in Shinto purification rituals. Yet its origins are on Sado: The solo male dancer and the work’s rhythms invoke Sado’s Onidaiko (demon drumming) dances, when villagers in fearsome masks are transformed into dancing demons.

Tsuji reframes this in his piece, but like others in the younger generation of Kodo artists, he learned the heart of the piece from Sado locals, a process that instilled deeper trust and understanding between artistic newcomers to the community and the islanders. “Pieces like ‘Sakaki’ show our profound commitment to the island,” Akimoto said in comments about the 2011 tour. “This dance piece is a token of thanks and appreciation from the younger generation of Kodo to the islanders who taught them traditional arts.”