I appeared in Tamagawa Takashimaya's Christmas project "love and trees."

This is Takashimaya in Futakotamagawa, a town just before the Tama River, 15 minutes by local train from Shibuya Station in Tokyo.

Although I have been living in Tokyo for nearly 30 years, I have only gotten off at this station two or three times, so it is still an unfamiliar place. After getting off the station, I immediately spotted the large Takashimaya department store on my left, but I was surprised at how much effort it took to get from there to the Grand Patio on the first floor of the main building.

Currently, the hotel is running a collaborative project with More Trees , a forest conservation organization established by Ryuichi Sakamoto, called "Love and Trees" to commemorate the 50th anniversary of its opening. As a special event, a selected string quartet from the Tohoku Youth Orchestra was given the opportunity to perform at a mini concert and talk show.

Today, I saw a post on Facebook from a friend studying abroad in London who said that he noticed that people around him were saying "Christmassy" on his second Christmas. Apparently it means something that feels like Christmas. The inside of the store was filled with a Christmassy feel. This tree was also planned and supervised by More Trees .

The members practiced in the waiting room until just before the performance.

From this day onwards, close coverage for a certain program on a certain television station will also begin.
Today's quartet consists of Watanabe Masahiro, Ito Takuya (violin), Takahashi Ayaka (cello), and Muraoka Ryo (viola).

Yuta, the eldest of the three Tomizawa brothers and an alumnus of the Tohoku Youth Orchestra, came to the wings to support the group. The fifth-year university student reported with a shy smile that he had "got a teaching license."

Well, at the actual performance we played the above five songs.

Bach "Air on the G String"
Mozart "AVE VERM CORPUS"
Ryuichi Sakamoto "Aqua"
Ryuichi Sakamoto "Behind the Mask"
Ryuichi Sakamoto "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence"

Ideally, I would have liked to include photos of the performance, but because Director Sakamoto was also performing at the venue that day, there were so many spectators that I couldn't get close and take photos...

Even when we tried to film a conversation between Director Sakamoto and More Trees' Secretary General Mizutani Shinichi.

All I could see was the director's silver hair...
Even though I was wearing a strap around my neck that said "Related Parties" I felt reluctant to take pictures because it would be a nuisance if a bunch of people said "Someone is taking pictures so brazenly, I'll take one too," so it was so lively that I felt reluctant to do so.

To give you an idea of how crowded it was, I was riding the escalator.

There were also a lot of customers in the second floor of this atrium. So, if you want to see photos of the stage, search for "# love & trees" and "# Ryuichi Sakamoto"...

After a satisfying performance, they took a commemorative photo after the show.

We decided that taking normal photos would not be interesting, so we took the inspiration from the original phrase "love & trees," "love & peace."

A peace sign is made up of three fingers, and three trees make a "forest", love & threes?

Thank you very much to everyone who came to the event.

The "Christmassy" "love & trees" event will be held until Christmas on the 25th. I heard that Director Sakamoto signed a wall inside the building after the show. I left without checking it out, so if you do go out, I'd be happy if you could take a photo and post it on social media with the hashtag "love & trees" (sorry I didn't win a prize in the lottery).

We have also started to announce the advance ticket sales for the regular concert in March of next year . The next concert will be so packed with so many things that it will make your head spin, so please make sure to secure your tickets early!