This is a report on a volunteer performance in Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture.

Hello everyone!

I'm Tomizawa, a volunteer musician who plays the tuba.

Next time, we plan to have a junior member of staff write the report, so this will be the last activity report we write!

Now, on February 10th, the seventh volunteer activity of this term was held in Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture.

On the day, we gathered at Sendai Station at 8:00am and took the train to Ishinomaki Station.

First, I took some photos while traveling.

This photo was taken while traveling on the Senseki Line near Matsushima. It is counted as one of the Three Most Scenic Spots in Japan, and the participants were fascinated by its beauty (though Minami, a junior high school student, was fast asleep because it was early in the morning...)

We arrived at Ishinomaki Station around 10:00 and took a group photo as a souvenir.

This time, the five of us performed together!

You're probably wondering about the Kamen Rider in the background...

After doing some research, I found out that this is Shotaro Ishinomori's hometown and there are monuments like this all over the city (sorry, I didn't know this).

After taking some commemorative photos, it was time to head to today's performance location!

This time, we performed at Futako Higashi Kizuna Hall in Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture.

Moreover, this meeting hall was only recently completed, and the event we attended this time was actually the opening event!

The event I participated in this time was to unveil a 1/500 scale model of the townscape before the earthquake, and to celebrate the publication of a collection of local memories called "Tweets."

Here are some photos of the model

This is a diorama, and it is an incredibly elaborate one, recreating not only the streetscape but even the color of the roofs!

If you look closely, you can see something like a flag stuck in the diorama.

These are the "tweets" from people in the area!

The idea behind creating the diorama was that by integrating fun memories and scenery from before the earthquake with the local people who gathered, it would be used as a reference for reminiscing, and I thought it was a truly wonderful project, as the local people who gathered were able to reminisce while looking at the diorama.

Once we arrive at the venue, it's time for rehearsal!

This time, we were not only performing live, but we were also performing in the background of announcer Ooba Yuka's narration, so we rehearsed more thoroughly than usual.

After the rehearsal, we moved to another location and listened to a talk by Naganuma Yuto, an active storyteller.

The talk included topics such as what happened before the earthquake, the local area, and happy memories, and the children used a model of the area around Okawa Elementary School to talk about these topics.

The person on the right is Naganuma Yuto.

Our volunteer performance group does activities other than just performing, but many of the storytellers do not talk about the earthquake disaster, but rather talk about memories from before the disaster and what the future holds, with a future-oriented approach. This makes us realize the importance of looking to the future rather than looking back at the past.

Now, after listening to the story, it's time for lunch!

This time, I was looking forward to being treated to lunch, but it exceeded my expectations in a good way!

I think it's easier to understand by looking at pictures than by reading text, so please take a look at the pictures.

It was a lunch of oysters, oysters and more oysters!

These oysters are farmed in Nagaotsuura, which is located in this region. Oysters from Nagaotsuura only make up around 1% of the oysters produced in Miyagi Prefecture. However, due to their delicious taste, they are a premium brand known only to those in the know. In the past, they have apparently sold for the highest price in Miyagi Prefecture at auction!

What's more, this time we were able to enjoy a selection of carefully selected, all-star oysters!

Minami-chan was so impressed by the taste that she had this expression on her face.

I was also treated to the oysters, and I ate them absentmindedly, wondering if this is what they mean by indescribable deliciousness! I had never eaten such delicious oysters before, but at the same time, I began to wonder, if these were real oysters, then what kind of oysters I had been buying at the supermarket up until now?

I thought that oysters were supposed to have a creamy taste with a hint of seawater, but the oysters here were not salty at all! Instead, the natural flavor of the oysters was preserved, and I felt like I could eat as many as I wanted.

When I asked the fishermen why they weren't salty, they told me that compared to other farms, the saltiness of oysters from Nagaotsuura is about 0.5% lower, which is why they aren't salty. Also, the oysters here grow quickly, so they are said to be one-year-old oysters that are shipped in one year.

While we were eating lunch, Yuto asked me, "Producer (He was called Producer that day), are you drinking oysters?" Yes. You can drink the oysters here!

It was that delicious!

Nonbiri Mura, the place where we were treated to lunch, apparently only accepted one group per night and hosted delicious food and people to socialize with before the disaster. However, after the disaster the area was designated uninhabitable, so now the place only hosts travelers at lunch and provides social interaction.

And then, at the place where we had lunch, there was a celebrity...

You might think it's Sandwichman's Date Mikio, but it's actually his lookalike, Sakashita Takashi, an oyster fisherman from Nagao-ura, who has been officially recognized by the man himself!

We enjoyed a delicious lunch and took a commemorative photo.

Everyone looks happy after enjoying the delicious food.

The pose is a C pose, named after Sandwichman (lol)

The person sitting next to Sakashita-san is Mr. Ogawa of Ogawa Suisan, the company that harvested the oysters we had this time. And the restaurant where we had lunch this time, "Nonbiri Mura", is Mr. Sakashita-san's family home, and is run by his mother.

My surname is Tomizawa, and someone said to me, "If you stand next to Sakashita-san, you'll look like Sandwichman," so I took a photo as a souvenir.

Tomizawa (Tomizawa) and Date (a person who looks similar) complete Sandwich Man.

After enjoying the delicious oysters, Yuto guided us to Okawa Elementary School.

Okawa Elementary School is still fresh in our memory as the place where many students lost their lives, but here we were given a talk using photographs from before the earthquake.

One of his words that made a lasting impression on me was, "This place is certainly where many people died, but it is also my alma mater where I was raised. So rather than a sad place, it is a place filled with many happy memories for me, so I want everyone to listen to and remember these happy memories." He himself lost his younger brother at Okawa Elementary School, and he said about the accident at Okawa Elementary School, "In the end, we were unable to protect the children, but I'm sure there was not a single teacher at the time who did not want to protect the children. The important thing is not to look back on the accident, but to pass it on as a lesson to the future." This reminded me of the importance of looking to the future.

The school song of Okawa Elementary School is titled "Opening up the Future."

He also said that he hopes this place will serve as a lesson for future generations, and that by having its stories handed down from visitor to future generations, it will become a place that paves the way for the future.

Now, now it's time for the real thing.

This time the performance lasted about 30 minutes, but there was also a section introducing instruments, making it a very harmonious concert.

The concert was going smoothly, but then something happened during the encore...

This time, the encore was planned to be a song from "Dragon Quest", but the audience said, "We want to sing Furusato at the end..."

Oh, this is bad! I thought, but then Muraoka-kun started playing the accompaniment... and then the other musicians started playing too, and I thought it was amazing... and then I realized they were even harmonizing and playing the accompaniment! I was really impressed... I heard later that it was all completely ad lib... It's really amazing...

The concert ended without a hitch, and at the end we all took a commemorative photo holding the collection of tweets.

Everybody, you all look so good!

Thank you everyone for your hard work!

Now, here is a summary.

I think one of the roles of volunteer concerts is to act as a lubricant for the local community. After the earthquake, I think that one of the challenges many regions face is the regeneration and maintenance of the community. After the earthquake, people moved to new places and it became difficult to maintain the community as it was before, but there are activities in each region aimed at regenerating the community as it was before the earthquake. We hope that our activities will cooperate with such activities and provide a place of relaxation for the local community, which we believe will lead to "activities that are close to the community."

Furthermore, by meeting various people from various regions, we hope that our activities will become even deeper and more active than they are now.

Currently, this is one of the youth orchestra's major activities, but it cannot yet be said to be a vigorous activity and awareness is still low. However, by steadily and continuously carrying out such activities, we hope that when the current generation of elementary and junior high school students become university students and become the generation that will lead the youth orchestra, it will have grown into "an orchestra that Tohoku can be proud of," and that volunteer activities will become easier to manage than they are now.

There is only one more volunteer activity this year, and Sato and I, who were founding members of the volunteer performance committee, will be leaving the committee after this term's activity. Our hope is that the junior members of the committee will continue to lead the volunteer activities next term and beyond, and pass on this activity to the next generation.

We would like to ask for your continued support for the Tohoku Youth Orchestra's voluntary performance activities and for our juniors in the coming term and beyond.

The final volunteer concert of this season will be held on Saturday, February 23rd at the Otagaisama Center of the Tomioka Town Social Welfare Council, Koriyama Branch, in Tomita Town, Koriyama City, Fukushima Prefecture.

We have prepared a program that everyone can enjoy, so if you are in the area or are interested, please come along!

Yuta Tomizawa (eldest of the three Tomizawa brothers, from Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture, fourth-year university student, tuba player)