When I looked for other videos of the Kansai Mandolin Ensemble I found the following video of a group named Talilele of 27 players with mandolins, ukuleles and other plucked instruments.
Something Unexpected: Talilele
This group is composed of 27 players of ukuleles, cigar box ukues, mandolins, mandolas, banjo and some Japanese instruments and reminds me very much to the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. The sound is great and the energy of the group is fantastic.
The next video includes a lot of percussion played on the instruments:
Jyounetu Tairiku Cover Practice Talilele ukulele Orchestra
This last une was composed by the Japanese violin player Taro Hakase.
You can find a video of this with Taro Hakase & Iwao Furusawa – Jounetsu Tairiku
I have found some other videos of this group and made a playlist with all videos:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD8C058F60E542A86
Talilele on Myspace
The group Talilele has a Myspace page too: http://www.myspace.com/talilele where I have found the following description of Talilele:
“TALILELE”, the ukulele orchestra in Kobe, was formed by the complete beginner players in October 2006. Almost 2’n half years have passed since then and you can’t call us beginners any more! (may be)Well, technically speaking, we are still far away from master of UKE, indeed. However, our love for music, overnight tender tough trainings by our concert master, AND bunch of liqure have been making amateur players “performers”, we believe. Wow! Hope to see you someday & somewhere. Thank you for keep encouragings!