It has been about a month since the Sapporo summer training camp, which kicked off this year, last month.

The long-awaited first practice session was held on September 18th, the middle day of the three-day weekend.

Unfortunately, the event took place at the Fukushima Prefectural Cultural Center on a chilly, rainy day.

Apparently naming rights were introduced in April of this year.

The nickname for the facility has been changed to "Toho Everyone's Cultural Center."

After searching quite persistently, I found out that "Touhou" stands for "Toho Bank."

The center we will be using today is

Of course, the number of members did not suddenly increase to over 1,000.

This year, we rented this large hall so that we could all play together from the very first practice.

There aren't many places where more than 100 people can get on stage and perform.

This will be a great support for the Tohoku Youth Orchestra, who are also grateful for the provision of a practice space.

Please consider us if you are a country, local government, company, organization, or individual with suitable land or building.

Well, this is the first joint practice session with about 30 new members.

The orientation began at 9:30 in the morning and lasted for the first 30 minutes, with me, Hirokazu Tanaka, speaking on behalf of the secretariat.

This is what we talked about. It's a bit long, but it's important, and because there were about a dozen members who couldn't attend the first practice, I'll just give you a brief summary.

Thanks to you, the Tohoku Youth Orchestra has reached its second year. This is all thanks to the people who support this activity. Since it is the second year, we will be more vigilant. Let us be aware once again that the Tohoku Youth Orchestra is an orchestra that supports reconstruction. Five and a half years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake, which claimed more than 21,000 lives, including those who died and those who are missing, and the reality is that more than 140,000 people are still evacuated. The Tohoku Youth Orchestra aims to convey the fact that the effects of the earthquake are still continuing both domestically and internationally through music, and to become a place where people can connect and grow through music, so that we can overcome the earthquake and rebuild. There is a proverb that says, "Don't think that your parents and money will last forever." "Don't think that you will last forever, TYO." We are able to carry out our activities thanks to individuals who have donated to the Tohoku Youth Orchestra and companies who have sponsored it. Let's not forget to be grateful.

My name is Hirokazu Tanaka. My hobby is meeting people with the same name as me, and I have met 111 people so far. I am the representative director of the General Incorporated Association Hirokazu Tanaka Association. I was shocked the other day when my 8-year-old daughter said to me, "Your job is to meet people with the same name as you." I replied, "The world is not that easy!" I have been working at Dentsu, an advertising agency in Tokyo, since graduating from university for 25 years. I am probably about the same age as your father, or maybe a lot older. The Tohoku Youth Orchestra was started when I met Ryuichi Sakamoto, who lives in New York, for work in April 2011. Mr. Sakamoto had a strong desire to help with reconstruction efforts as a musician. He said, "I want to help with reconstruction efforts by repairing the instruments that children have lost in the disaster." In response to these feelings, we launched a reconstruction support project called the "Children's Music Revival Fund" by the Japan Musical Instruments Association, an industry group consisting of about 800 companies related to musical instruments nationwide, centered around Yamaha, a musical instrument manufacturer. First, we conducted a survey of about 1,800 schools in the three affected prefectures to ask about the damage status of musical instruments, and as a result, we inspected about 3,300 musical instruments and repaired about 2,000 instruments. From the primary activity of inspection and repair, as a secondary activity, we created a music appreciation class program for kindergartens and elementary schools and sent students to about 200 schools to give lessons. In addition, we held an all-genre concert called "School Music Revival Live" for junior and senior high school students once a year in August every year in Miyagi Prefecture, bringing together music club activities from schools in the three prefectures, three times in a row for three years. At that time, the Lucerne Festival, a world-famous music festival in Switzerland, offered to hold a music event to support reconstruction in the disaster-stricken areas, and in the fall of 2013, it became the Lucerne Festival ARKNOVA Matsushima. The Lucerne side wanted to appoint a well-known artistic director to enliven the country, and following the flow of the Children's Music Revival Fund, Ryuichi Sakamoto accepted the role, and came up with the idea of "Tohoku Youth Orchestra," saying, "Since we're here, let's have a mixed junior orchestra from the disaster-stricken areas." Thanks to everyone's support, the project was well-received, so we inherited the will and funds of the Children's Music Revival Fund and organized it as the general incorporated association Tohoku Youth Orchestra, with Ryuichi Sakamoto as representative and director. The representative director is Masato Oshiki, general affairs manager of the Japan Musical Instruments Association and managing director of Yamaha, and the three directors are the Tokyo branch managers and business executives of the local newspapers in the three prefectures, Fukushima Minpo, Iwate Nippo, and Sendai Kahoku Shimpo, and we are forming the organization.
In this way, the Tohoku Youth Orchestra exists thanks to the support of many people. Please do not forget to be grateful and do not miss any monthly practice sessions. Sometimes, just before practice, there are people who send rude emails like threatening letters saying, "I will not practice." This is out of the question. Make sure you do the basics properly. Please write your name, part, and area in the email. If there is someone who is truly behaving badly, we will ask them to leave. I don't think there are any such people. The policy of the Tohoku Youth Orchestra is "We do not chase those who leave, and we do not refuse those who come."

There will be no progress if we keep doing the same thing every year. We will announce a new initiative starting this year. First of all, we are now able to cover half of the travel expenses for university students who live outside the three prefectures. This is also thanks to the donations and sponsorship we received. Let's be grateful. Secondly, we will strengthen our information dissemination. Starting this year, we would like all members to actively disseminate information through the Internet. To that end, at last month's Sapporo training camp, we held a "Workshop to spread the word about TYO more" with Rikako Nagashima, the "art teacher" who designs the Tohoku Youth Orchestra, and Naeko Ito, a lifestyle researcher living in Sapporo who also works with Director Sakamoto. We will take photos with our smartphones, add text, and upload them to the Tohoku Youth Orchestra's Instagram. Let's teach each other and actively disseminate information so that more people will know about the Tohoku Youth Orchestra. And for the second concert in March next year, in addition to the Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall as with the first concert, we will be able to hold a triumphant return performance at the Koriyama Civic Cultural Center the next day. For this second concert, in addition to the main piece, Mahler's Symphony No. 1 "Titan," which we will begin practicing today, this year we would like to challenge ourselves with a Japanese folk song.

Following this, we were introduced to Norimichi Iijima, the technical director of the office and an executive of Promax, who has been involved in the production of concerts for director Ryuichi Sakamoto for many years. This veteran, who has been in the music production business since graduating from a music college, talked about the mindset for a concert. To reach a level where the paying audience can be satisfied with Mahler's No. 1, you just have to practice. He urged us to listen to Mahler's music until it is ingrained in our bodies, and practice hard. Next, we introduced the staff of the Tokyo office. TYO's "big sister" Naomi Okada (Promax), Masako Suga (Harmonics International), who will be supporting Okada from this year, and Yu Miyagawa, a junior colleague of ours (not the one with Hirokazu Tanaka). The Fukushima office is made up of TYO's "mother" Mari Otsuka, who has been managing the local Fukushima Television (FTV) junior orchestra, FTV junior orchestra instructor Manabu Takeda, and Yutaka Watanabe, who runs the nearby wind instrument store Brilliant but is absent today due to work. In fact, the office staff members Iijima, Suga, Takeda, and Watanabe are all trombonists. Even if you are absent due to illness, it's okay for the TYO trombone section to be absent during the performance, so please practice with peace of mind.

In addition, the "captain" who will be the leader representing this year's group was announced: Akane Hatakeyama, a second-year university student from Sendai.

In fact, she also studies Japanese dance and is a caring older sister who is dedicated to both Japanese and Western classical music, so I hope she will lead the troupe members until their concert in March next year.

This year's concertmaster has been selected as Masahiro Watanabe, a second-year high school student from Koriyama.

With our captains and concert mistresses, TYO is a society where women can thrive.

The section leaders have also been decided (quite different from last year, when they were decided just before the concert).

And just as promised, at exactly 10 o'clock (I was so proud of myself for such a great progression!), we introduced Yanagisawa Toshio, who will be conducting again this year.

Kosovo Philharmonic Orchestra Principal Conductor and Balkan Chamber Orchestra Music Director Toshio Yanagisawa is a pillar of TYO who is loved by the orchestra members as "Mischievous Professor" behind the scenes, despite his dandy appearance in photos. He jokes during practice that he wants to "grill meat with a drum." This year, the first joint practice will start with the second movement of Mahler's Symphony No. 1.

Everyone seems to be managing to follow the music, but it looks like there's still a long way to go...

At the end of the two-hour morning practice, we received a speech of encouragement from Hideyuki Araki, Director of the Fukushima Minpo Newspaper Company, who is also a director of the company. Thanks to the efforts of the Fukushima Minpo Newspaper Company, we will be able to hold the Koriyama performance in March of next year.

Not only did they give me words of encouragement, but they also gave me two cases of Fukushima specialty Aizu-yaki rice crackers, totaling 140 pieces. Thank you very much!

Reporter Ando from the Fukushima Minpo News Bureau also came to cover the event and interviewed conductor Yanagisawa.

The next day, the Fukushima Minpo newspaper published a wonderful article about it. The size of the article is hard to convey on the internet, so I asked a member of the Fukushima group to take a photo and send it to me.

It is my optimistic guess that about one in five Fukushima residents learned about the Tohoku Youth Orchestra's Fukushima performance through today's morning paper.

TYO is characterized by its wide range of students, from fifth graders to fourth graders. Here are two photos taken during lunch break. First, the three Aoki sisters.

Tohoku Youth is a group of university students, high school students, and junior high school students - Kono from Hokkaido, Ito from Fukushima, and Salem from Iwate - who usually live far away from each other and get along well.

In the afternoon, we had a solid three-hour practice of Mahler. I'd like to give you a glimpse of the practice of the fourth movement of Symphony No. 1, which is considered the most difficult.

Stay tuned to see how these children continue to improve as they take on this challenging piece with its constantly changing tempo.

Once practice is over, we all clean up.

We saw off the bus that was heading back to Sendai and Iwate.

The next joint practice session is on Sunday, October 2nd, so it's a short period, but please make sure you practice hard.

We look forward to your support for the Tohoku Youth Orchestra until our concert in March of next year.