Under the dreadfully clear autumn skies, we held our first ensemble rehearsal in two months in the large hall of the Fukushima Prefectural Cultural Center in Fukushima City.

Mr. Hashimoto was smiling as he carried his double bass from before 9am. Playing a large instrument requires a lot of physical strength.

It almost seems as if the double bass is carrying the band. The members are gathering at the practice venue one after another.

The violinist, Minami Suzuki, came to the staff gathering in the wings of the stage. She gave the conductor, Toshio Yanagisawa, a souvenir from Tokyo Disneyland or DisneySea, and smiled.

The pattern on the bag is already Christmas. And, as for Mr. Yanagisawa, he was flying around Geneva, Kosovo, Kumamoto and concerts, and just arrived in Fukushima, tired, but as soon as he arrived, he wrote a bowing on the new song. Thank you very much.

For all of you wondering "What is 'bowing'?", don't worry. I too had never heard the word before I started this job, and when I heard it for the first time I thought "bowling?" The correct answer is the way the bow of a string instrument moves. That morning, we started with a review of practice, starting with "The Last Emperor" and "ETUDE", both composed by director Ryuichi Sakamoto and performed at the first concert.

Then we will start working on a new piece to be performed at the second concert in March next year. The sheet music for "Three TOHOKU Songs," for which was just distributed on this day, was arranged by Fujikura Dai, a promising contemporary musician who is attracting attention from around the world. The original songs were selected from one local folk song each from Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima. Folk songs are the order of the day, everyone. This June, there was a VR (virtual reality) exhibition called "Björk Digital" by Iceland's treasure Björk, held at the Miraikan Science Museum in Tokyo. She herself came to Japan to DJ at the opening, so as someone who lives mainly out of curiosity, I went there as a sightseeing trip, even though I'm not a party person. Then, starting with Amami folk songs and Ryukyu folk songs, it was a long parade of Japanese folk songs for about an hour. This was extremely cool. Since Björk, who is probably the world's strongest creator today (Northern Hemisphere female middle-aged category), is promoting it, Japanese folk songs should be rediscovered by the world from now on. From that day on, I became obsessed with folk songs, and I bought a CD set called the Complete Collection of Japanese Folk Songs, which contained 160 songs and cost 980 yen, which was an extremely good value for money, and listened to it diligently.

Even at the practice venue that day, I noticed a Japanese drum casually prepared in the wings of the stage. As it happened that the second year of the Tohoku Youth Orchestra was a time to check back to the origins, I chose one song from each of the three prefectures where folk songs are popular. They were "Tairyo Utakikomi" from Miyagi Prefecture, "Nambu Yoshare" from Iwate Prefecture, and "Soma Bon Uta" from Fukushima Prefecture. Fujikura, who was appointed by Director Sakamoto as an arranger, was inspired by this and readily agreed, which made it happen.

"I'm relieved that they performed well considering it was the first time we saw them. I think they've improved since last year," said conductor Yanagisawa. In fact, only a few members had heard the original song beforehand. If things continue like this, local folk songs will not be passed on to the younger generation. In addition to performing the song, they also practiced just the calls, such as "Koryakorya" and "Dokkoisa~". It should be a more innovative and enjoyable performance than you can imagine. The title of the score above is a mistake that I overlooked. My apologies. The correct title is "Three TOHOKU Songs". During lunch break, in addition to bento, we also had some delicious "Zunda Ohagi" dumplings given to us by Otsuka Mari from the Fukushima office, and we ate three of them,

In addition, the mothers of band members Toh Eijun (percussion) and Miura China (violin) gave us some mini breads from a local farm, and we got to try three of them: anko buns, curry buns, and cream cheese buns.

Thank you very much for your consideration. The staff shared it among themselves and enjoyed it. In the afternoon, we had a full practice of the main piece of the next concert, Mahler's Symphony No. 1. Mahler wrote detailed performance instructions in German on the score, and under Mr. Yanagisawa's guidance, we decided to create a Japanese translation of the Tohoku Youth Orchestra's version, so the university students shared the translation work. The final edit was done by the trumpet section leader, Nakamura Yuto, a university student from Sendai, and the Tohoku Youth Orchestra's original performance guide was completed.

Now that you have this original playing guide, it's time to resume practicing.

So, what kind of performance instructions are written? If you follow the instruction "In sehr weiter Entfemung aufgestellt" for the trumpet, it will play like this.

Everyone was playing on stage, but for some reason, the three of them were at the very edge of the wings.

Three people playing the trumpet. In the middle is Hasegawa Momo, last year's captain. She reluctantly quit because she is a fourth-year university student this year, but she still had strong attachment to the Tohoku Youth Orchestra and came back last month. From the outside, it looks like some kind of punishment. This is following the instruction to "place the players very far apart." This is what happens to those who open the door to the wings without knowing this.

One of the directors of the Tohoku Youth Orchestra is Fukushima Minpo's Araki, Director of Business. If you came to the practice hall to discuss the Koriyama performance in March next year, and the moment you opened the door, you would be surprised to see someone playing the trumpet. Until the evening, careful practice of Mahler's Symphony "Titan" continued. At the end of the day's instruction, conductor Yanagisawa asked, "What is Fukushima's specialty?" While the members were dumbfounded, wondering what he was talking about, some of them said things like "enban gyoza" (dumplings on a sauce-flavored pork cutlet bowl). "So, let's eat lots of enban gyoza to build up our stamina so that we can play Mahler's long piece firmly and powerfully to the end, and let's also make sure to shout out the folk song calls properly," he instructed.

Captain Hatakeyama also handed out the following questionnaire. This is a voluntary initiative, mainly by university students, to look back on the origins of the orchestra as a reconstruction support group and think about what they can do.
There have been many voices expressing a desire to perform at a variety of venues, not just in temporary housing, but also at local festivals, events, and other venues.
Last year, conductor Yanagisawa described the Tohoku Youth Orchestra as an "interesting orchestra," and indeed it is a large group of over 100 people, with a wide range of ages from elementary school students to university students, a composition with many wind instruments, and a wide range of performance levels, so I thought it was certainly "interesting," but I would like to call it an "alternative orchestra." It was founded to resist the fading of memories of the earthquake disaster, it values the independence of children, it allows them to play in other orchestras, and it challenges itself to play unusual pieces rather than the mainstream of junior orchestras. This can be called an "alternative orchestra" or "alternative orchestra." I said that at the end of practice, but did everyone understand?
As for new performance opportunities, a large venue has been prepared. The concert will be held at the Festival Hall in Osaka on December 19th.
Yoshinaga Sayuri x Sakamoto Ryuichi Charity Concert "For Peace - Poetry, Music and Flowers"
http://www.promax.co.jp/info/2016/121901/
The Tohoku Youth Orchestra String Quartet will be performing on this special stage.

After the joint practice session, the selected members gathered in the lobby of the hall. They were a high school duo from Fukushima Prefecture, consisting of first violinist Takuya Ito and second violinist Masahiro Watanabe, and a university student duo from Miyagi Prefecture, consisting of viola player Shiori Sasaki and cellist Suzunosuke Shimomura. I strongly explained how great their performance was, and put educational pressure on everyone, interrupting their practice. As representatives of the Tohoku Youth Orchestra, I want them to practice hard and approach the performance with confidence.

When we went outside, the sun had already set and the bus was waiting to take us home, and the cold air made us feel the arrival of winter. On the platform at Fukushima Station, we bumped into the Iwate group.

I guess it's even colder in Morioka.
So, the third joint practice session ended successfully and with a fulfilling time.
If you are reading this, please feel free to let us know if you have any needs for the Tohoku Youth Orchestra to perform. If the opportunity is suitable, we will be happy to visit with volunteer members. If the timing is right, we have received specific plans to conduct Toshio Yanagisawa and perform Saint-Saëns' "The Carnival of the Animals." We look forward to receiving your casual requests.
We appreciate your continued support for the Tohoku Youth Orchestra.