Here is a report on the concert held to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the founding of Toyo Eiwa University!

On June 29th, the Tohoku Youth Orchestra was invited to perform at the 30th anniversary ceremony of Toyo Eiwa University.

The venue was a large classroom at Toyo Eiwa University in Yokohama.

It's a beautiful campus surrounded by greenery, and I'm so envious that you can spend your university life in such an environment!

This is a morning rehearsal. TYO currently has over 100 members, but this time they performed with a smaller group of 31 people.

We will carry out final checks until the very last moment.

After a lunch break, we changed into our performance costumes... and it was finally time for the big day!

The event began with a video message from representative and director Ryuichi Sakamoto.

They then performed the theme song from "Yae no Sakura," as well as "That Mountain," "Mother," and "Peace" from "Living with My Mother."

The conductor is Manabu Takeda, who is in charge of instruction at the Fukushima office.

The MCs were the new captain, Mr. Tajima, and the previous captain, Mr. Isogai.

Tajima-san later said, "Hosting the show was super nerve-wracking!!" lol

As captain, I think I'll have more opportunities to host in the future...!

Next is the main theme from the 1990 film "The Sheltering Sky" directed by Bernardo Bertolucci.
"Aqua" from Ryuichi Sakamoto's 1999 solo album "BTTB."
They then performed "Three TOHOKU Songs," an arrangement by composer Dai Fujikura, which is a medley of folk songs from the three Tohoku prefectures.

Along the way, we also interviewed members from Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima.

The representative from Iwate was violinist Seiya Kitagawa. She woke up at 5:30 that day and came from Iwate by Shinkansen!

Representing Miyagi was violinist Minami Suzuki. She said she liked Sendai because of the abundance of greenery.

Representing Fukushima was oboe player Satoshi Sekine. When asked what Fukushima has to offer, he recommended thin-skinned manju from Koriyama.

Then they returned to the performance, playing the main theme of "The Last Emperor," a film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci and released in 1987.

Finally, they played ETUDE from Ryuichi Sakamoto's 1984 solo album "Ongaku Zukan," and the audience joined in by clapping along.

The concert ended safely!

Finally, we took a commemorative photo in the waiting room! The tension was gone and everyone was smiling!

During the free time before the return Shinkansen train, we also recorded an interview for "Shibuya Radio" ( https://shiburadi.com/ ).

The interviewer is Nogi-san (a former TYO member and marimba player), the MC of "Shibuya's Tohoku Youth Orchestra," which is broadcast live every Wednesday from 11:30.

We asked conductor Takeda-san to share his thoughts about the concert!

Takeda's interview will be broadcast on Wednesday, July 3rd. You can listen to the archive from the note below, so please check it out!

https://note.mu/shiburadi/n/n5cadcf62e729

We also interviewed many members of the team on this day.

It seems that many of the members get embarrassed when a microphone is pointed at them... Perhaps being modest is a part of the Tohoku character!

We will be introducing interviews with the members little by little in future broadcasts!

Finally, we received some lovely stationery with the Toyo Eiwa University logo as a souvenir. Thank you very much!

This was an opportunity to perform in a different format than our regular concert in March, and the members seemed very inspired by the fact that they had to perform with a slightly different level of tension than usual.

Thank you to everyone at Toyo Eiwa Jogakuin for this valuable opportunity!