This is a report on the 6th joint training session held in November.

On Sunday, November 4th, the sixth joint training session of this year was held in Fukushima City. The road from Fukushima Station to the training venue was completely filled with autumn scenery.

We saw the Iwate team boarding the Shinkansen at Morioka Station. Their destination was the headquarters of Fukushima Minpo, which was providing them with a training venue.

This place was also surrounded by trees completely colored in autumn leaves.

Before practice, a meeting is held with all section leaders and leaders of each department.

The main theme this morning is about the crowdfunding campaign currently underway. The leader, Karin Hashimoto (from Iwaki City, double bass player, third-year university student), is asking for help spreading the word on social media.

This is a volunteer performance group that mainly performs in areas that were hit hard by the disaster, with members negotiating with local people, managing the budget, and carrying out the activities independently and independently. This year, we have even prepared original thank-you gifts for donations. We would appreciate your support. Here .

This day fell at the peak of the university's school festival, and unfortunately many people were absent as their studies took priority.

The two lion dancers on the stage, who had been lowered onto the stage for the first time in a long time, also looked to be in a bad mood.

However, under the guidance of conductor Toshio Yanagisawa, the orchestra performed Brahms' Symphony No. 2 today, starting from the first movement.

As I was leaving the Royal Hall where we were practicing, I happened to see Tono Hidezumi (from Fukushima City, percussionist, second-year high school student) who was off duty.

Last month, Toho Gakuen Junior Music Competition won first place in the high school composition category . We decided to interview him right away.

Congratulations on the win! That's great.

Last year, there were no winners for first or second place, so I ended up in third place, so I'm very happy. This year, five of us made it to the finals, and thanks to everyone's support, we were able to take first place.

Please tell us about your winning work.

The title is "The Locrian Tree", and it's about 10 minutes long. I imagined a fictional tree taken from the Locrian mode, and wrote the theme in Locrian. It's a piece for piano and solo violin, and the performance was performed by university students and high school students from Toho College of Music. Last year, I played the piano solo piece myself. This year's piece turned out better.

Do you want to be a composer in the future?

Yes, I would like to start by studying composition at a music college.

I would like you to compose the opening fanfare for the concert in March next year. When I asked all the members of the orchestra, no one else came up with a candidate, and everyone said "Eijun is the best."

The first time was a trumpet duet, the second was a trumpet trio, and the third time was a brass octet, so next time I will compose according to the arrangement of the people who want to play. In the Tohoku Youth Orchestra, I am studying composition of instrumental music other than piano.

I'm looking forward to performing the piece at the concert in March next year.

The ensemble continued in the hall until the fourth movement.

After more than two hours of practice, it was finally time for lunch,

The cello students stayed behind to practice the solo part of the second movement. Mr. Yanagisawa, it was a passionate lesson without lunch. Thank you very much.

On the other hand, for the non-cello members, because the total number of members was small this time, in order to encourage interaction among the members, the lunch was divided into groups by blood type, rather than by birthday month. First, the O-type members.

And here are the B-type people. They're a compact, just the right size.

And the most powerful group, Type A, held a wonderful unity lunch.

As for the remaining AB type people, there were a few, but they were scattered and I couldn't find any groups... It was a lunch that made me want to believe in blood type fortune telling.

Then, the secretariat members received a request to submit an article to an industry magazine, so members from Tokyo and Fukushima gathered together to take photos for publication.

Just then, Hideyuki Araki, director of the general incorporated association and business director of Fukushima Minpo, came to greet us, so we arranged the photo to surround him.

Mari Otsuka, from the Fukushima office, has beautifully settled white hair. "They've finally started decontaminating the sewage in my neighborhood. Even though the radiation levels were low even in Fukushima City, it's already been seven years since the disaster. Until then, we were told not to do anything ourselves..." From the reality of the situation on the ground that we hear from time to time, we can see how deep the scars of the disaster still remain.

We had our first guest at the afternoon practice.

This is composer Aya Nishina . Born in Sendai, she has studied composition and been active in music for many years in New York. She even performed live with director Ryuichi Sakamoto, whom she met there. This time, she was asked by the director to write a piece for the Tohoku Youth Orchestra. The title is "Kugui no Sora".

Before the sound was played, he gave us an explanation of the piece.

The new song is titled "Kugui no Sora" (The Sky of Kugui). It is based on the motif of the migratory birds that come to Hokkaido and Tohoku every autumn to spend the winter.

At first, Director Ryuichi Sakamoto asked me to create a sound from the north, saying, "I'm looking for a sound from the north. I want you to create a sound from Tohoku." So I imagined the Kugui. Kugui is a giant swan.

My grandmother lives in Tome City, Miyagi Prefecture, and she told me that I could see swans at the nearby Izunuma, so I went there. What I saw there was not a whooper swan like the ones in the zoo, but a whooper swan. They were very large. The reason why they stayed in Tohoku from Siberia was because they were heavy, so I thought it would be fine here. There were rice fields, too. The scene of a large number of whooper swans gathered there remains in my memory from my childhood.

He continued to give a heartfelt explanation of the picture books he had brought with him.

Since ancient times, whooper swans come to this area in the fall, spend the winter with their families, and return to Siberia in the spring. "Kugui" has been here since the ancient times of Yamato Takeru. In archaic Japanese, it was called "kukui", but as it moved up to Tohoku, it probably became "kugui" because of the accent. "Kugui sky" refers to the sky where not only swans but various other birds fly. For example, Miyagi Prefecture's prefectural bird is the wild goose. Various migratory birds gather in this Tohoku area every year from various places. Director Sakamoto also migrates here from New York.

Just as all kinds of birds gather together, spend the winter in the same place, and fly away in the spring, each and every one of you has a future. I composed this song with that feeling in mind.
Swans have a great voice. When that part comes, shout it with your instrument. The swans on the lake are a magnificent sight. I hope everyone will get up early and see the swans with their own eyes.

I moved back to Sendai from New York two years ago, and I have relatives in both Iwate and Fukushima prefectures. If I talk to everyone, we might know the same places or stores. I hope we can have friendly conversations.

Please play with espressivo (expressive). Think of my works as ingredients and season them however you like .

I could sense the hot passion and friendship hidden within the calm, intellectual way of speaking, and I felt that I had found the right person to provide this song.

This day marked the first rehearsal of the first movement.

Throughout the practice, he listened carefully to the members' performances, and sometimes gave instructions on the spot on changes to the music, such as whether or not to use legato.
On that note, she encouraged the members by saying, "What is mezzo forte for you might be mezzo piano for me. It's okay to make mistakes, so go for it!"

I hope that the members of the orchestra will fully understand the pressure of performing this world premiere, and that they will practice hard, from reading the score in advance to practicing on their own, and then give a bold, espressivo performance.

In the afternoon, we worked on another piece composed by director Ryuichi Sakamoto, which we were performing for the first time, and continued practicing until 4:30 p.m.

People taking photos after practice.

We received two photos taken by the photographer, Abe Hidekatsu (from Fukushima City, cello player, third-year university student), who was using a digital single-lens reflex camera.

In fact, it was a promotional photo shoot for a volunteer concert to be held in Minami Sanriku on Saturday, November 24th.

We appreciate your continued support for these member-led voluntary concerts! Please see the JapanGiving crowdfunding page here .

https://japangiving.jp/campaigns/33909

Meanwhile, a group of smiling girls were holding Sendai's famous confectionery, "Hagino Tsuki," in both hands.

Mr. Nishina, who now lives in Sendai, sent us more copies of "Hagino Tsuki" than there were members of the orchestra. In addition to the song, we also received some sweets! We would like to ask all members of the orchestra to take the composer's thoughts into account and perform well in order to live up to the world premiere.

And it's that time of year again.

Yuto Nakamura (AB blood type), a fourth-year university student from Sendai, will be performing. If you are in the area, please come along.

The seasons change from autumn to winter, and four months later the spring concert will arrive.

We appreciate your continued support for the Tohoku Youth Orchestra.