SOMA, Fukushima Prefecture--As she listened to the beautiful strains of the Berlin Philharmonic wind quintet on Sept. 22, the difficulties that 11-year-old evacuee Yuma Kiyonobu has faced were suddenly lifted from her shoulders.
SOMA, Fukushima Prefecture--As she listened to the beautiful strains of the Berlin Philharmonic wind quintet on Sept. 22, the difficulties that 11-year-old evacuee Yuma Kiyonobu has faced were suddenly lifted from her shoulders.
Yuma evacuated from a "difficult-to-return zone" in Namie near the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, where evacuees are not allowed to return for at least five years from March 2012. Although she said tears always come to her eyes when thinking of Namie and her former friends, no tears were shed on the day.
“I have had many hardships, as I had to evacuate and change schools,” Yuma said. “But the performance by the German musicians has taken away all the negative feelings.”
Members of the woodwind quintet of the world-renowned Berlin Philharmonic visited here for the first time on Sept. 21 and 22, with the aim of encouraging children such as Yuma, who were mentally scarred by the earthquake and tsunami of March 2011, as well as the subsequent Fukushima nuclear disaster.
In Soma, where intensive disaster recovery work is being conducted, members of the quintet interacted with children through a mini-concert and a joint performance.
The visit of the German musicians was part of support activities by El Sistema, an international music education group that provides instruments to children worldwide and dispatches music instructors.
Since last spring, El Sistema has been organizing a children's orchestra in the city, named the Soma Children’s Orchestra and Chorus, with about 100 members, ranging from kindergartners to high school students. They mainly play string instruments.
On Sept. 22, the woodwind quintet played a work of Franz Joseph Haydn's and other pieces at a hall in the city. When an ensemble in Soma started performing the “Pictures at an Exhibition” by Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky after the quintet's performance, Berlin Philharmonic hornist Fergus McWilliam joined in, wowing children and the audience with his French horn.
The German performers also visited the city’s Sakuragaoka elementary school that day. After a performance by the quintet, students sang the choral song "Furusato" (Hometown), which was penned by broadcast writer Kundo Koyama.