Sunday morning concert in the Amagi Mountains


The first program was Divertimento KV. 136 with bassoon.

The next program was the String Quartet No. 12 in F major "America" by Antonin Dvorak.



The third part consisted of three pop songs.



Most guests sat on the floor.
On the last weekend I gave a concert on Amagi highland together with my music friends.

It was on the "golden week" when I happened to invite my neighbor couple, Mr. and Mrs. Tsuiki, to listen to a duet of violin and guitar. They were unexpectedly interested in our music and proposed me to play for a larger audience. We then agreed to invite our neighbors on the first weekend of August to a morning concert in my summer house.

I asked some friends of Torakyo to join me to play a string quartet "America" by Antonin Dvorak as well as Divertimento by W.A. Mozart and a few Japanese pop songs with vocal part sung by the audience. Let me introduce my colleague-musicians; Maaya (violinist), Saeki-kun (violist) and Moro-chan (bassoonist) are members of Torakyo and Yoko-san (cellist) is a music teacher. Bassoonist is not necessary for the music we played, but I asked Moro-chan to play for Mozart and the pop songs so as to strengthen the bass part, and of course because he is a resident of the nearby city Ito and a joyful drinking companion.

Maaya came with his husband and son. Therefore I had in total seven overnight guests. Frankly speaking, it was a hard work to take care of so many people alone, though they stay brought me a big joy. I had to arrange bed clothing, rehearsal, food and alcohol for them all! Therefore, I took one day off on Friday, went shopping in Ito, cooked various foods and made other preparations to accommodate people. On Saturday, some of the members came late - one due to golf competition of his company and the other because of overtime work at home. This forced me to change the schedule for rehearsals and sake-party I originally planned. It was not easy because we had a rehearsal of pop songs together with some of the neighbors as singers. So, I had to manage the schedule for about 2 dozen people in total. Of course, I had to play violin myself. So, I was already nearly exhausted before everything started.

The Second of August, Sunday, was unfortunately a rainy day. However, a bad weather was not necessarily a bad background for a concert. Though the humidity was nearly 100%, we could enjoy beautiful greenery and quiet atmosphere together with music.

The classic pieces were played more or less well, though we had only one day for rehearsal. However, the audience seemed to enjoy pop music more than classic music. Though they praised our performance after the concert, they did not hesitate to express their request to limit the classic music at most to "one piece" and to play more popular music and if possible "Kara OK"! It is slightly discouraging but very understandable, because for most of them classic music is really very exotic.

The last song was "Ringo no uta", the hit song in 1945. (Please check this page)
A couple told me that they heard live classical music only once in the past. It was in the Hibiya Public Hall and about 40 years ago!

I would like to thank my neighbor couple. They arranged together with their close friends in the neighborhood. In addition to the planning, they brought us lots of tempra during our rehearsal to encourage us, asked a friend to make enough pieces of wood carvings of beautiful birds as their expression of thanks to the musicians, and mobilized many people to arrange necessary service on the day of concert such as distributing plastic bags for shoes of more than 30 people.

Everybody was happy and we might be invited again next summer for a - maybe Kara OK - concert!
 2009.8.8