THE pace of life is never quick enough for the Hare, always too quick for the Tortoise.

However, for percussionist Hana Komai, it is just right on an upward spiral that has taken her from Japan to the United States and onwards to York this spring.

The Japanese classical and freeform musician arrived at the Theatre Royal in the last week of April to resume working on a coproduction of The Hare And The Tortoise that began in the Kijo Picture Book Village on Kyushu island in her home country last summer.

This is her first theatre show and, now, her first British performances too.

"It was really strange because I'd been on the books of this music agent for two years before we did this show in Japan, and for two years I hadn't heard from him.

Then he just called me up and said Ikutomo Kurogi the Kijo director was looking for a percussionist for a Japanese-English co-production, and as I could speak English well, he thought that would work well on this project."

Hana had lived in the USA for ten years, after her father's job with Toshiba was transferred from Yokohama to South Dakota.

"I'd just turned 14 when I moved there, and it was very difficult at first as I couldn't speak any English, and unlike a big, multinational city like Los Angeles or New York, it was just me and my sister who went to the high school and we had to pass all the classes in English, but there was no class in English as a second language, so I had no choice but to learn very quickly."

Hana had played piano from the age of three, switching to percussion at 12 or 13 at middle school in Japan.

"I wasn't really serious about percussion but when I moved to America and couldn't speak English, music was like a language for me, and it was something I could do with American high school students, so that got me going."

When her family left America after four years, Hana stayed, first studying music performance and psychology for four years at a liberal art college in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; then specialising in marimba on a Masters scholarship at the Boston Conservatory from 2000.

"I got a little bit burnt out with playing only marimba, so I decided to do more studies, hand percussion, congos and djambe, at Boston's sister college, Berklee College. I thought it was important to be able to do many different kinds of percussion, " she says.

Only then did Hanan return to Yokohama.

"It was really difficult to adjust because all my teenage years had been in America, and for ten years I hadn't known anyone in the Japanese music business, " she recalls.

"For a year or two I didn't know what to do, so I took a side job teaching English, and starting to play as a back-up percussionist little by little, then gradually doing more and more concerts in Tokyo."

Two years ago, Hana was able to give up her teaching job, sign up with that music agent, and you now know the rest.

Here she is at York Theatre Royal, swapping Japanese forest bamboo instruments in Kijo for cowbells and temple bells bought in York; performing in The Studio and undertaking workshops with the Theatre Royal youth theatre and elementary schools - oh, and keeping pace with both the Hare and the Tortoise.

The Hare And The Tortoise runs/walks at The Studio, York Theatre Royal, from tomorrow until June 16. Box office: 01904 623568.