No. 38 The choir happily sings the ninth

(Published in the December 15, 2014 issue of Koho Inagi)

On October 17, 2014, a concert by the citizen choir was held at i Plaza Hall as part of the Inagi City Cultural Festival and Inagi City Art Festival in the I Town Inagi Citizen Festival. The title was the 4th movement from Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, and I also participated in the bass part.
As I recall, last year, the Inagi City Federation of Arts and Culture Associations celebrated its 40th anniversary, and to commemorate the occasion, the president proposed that we perform the Ninth Chorus, and I accepted the invitation.
Choir? I was confused for a moment, but when I thought about it, I don't remember it since middle school. These days, I don't have the opportunity to sing in front of people, apart from karaoke, but I thought I'd give it a try for the first time in a few decades. I thought about it casually and responded easily.
This year, on April 24th, we held an inauguration ceremony, and all of the people who gathered at the venue seemed to have experience in the chorus club. I was a little nervous when I greeted them, but everyone's eyes turned to me and asked, "What! Is the mayor going to sing?" Immediately after the inauguration ceremony, I went to practice for the first time, but when I was handed the sheet music, I regretted it a little, no, a lot. I couldn't keep up with the notes, and I struggled with German, which I hadn't learned since graduating from university. However, since it was a choir performance, I decided to attend practice as much as possible so as not to disturb everyone.
This practice was held for a total of 25 times over a six-month period starting in April 2014, and was guided by Mr. Morino, a lecturer at Senzoku Gakuen College of Music and a Nikikai member who lives in Inagi City. We also received guidance from vocalist Shimizu-san from the middle of the program. Mr. Shimizu will be the soloist who will sing on the day of the performance, and is said to have previously been a citizen of Inagi. Furthermore, from the second half onwards, we received guidance from Mr. Goto, viola player of the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, who was asked to conduct during the actual performance. Mr. Goto recently moved to Inagi City, so he accepted this command.
On the day of the event, we enjoyed the soloist's opera performance in the first part, and then performed the fourth movement in the second part, successfully exceeding the rehearsal results. We received comments of ``joy'' from many visitors.
All the members of the choir were very impressed with how the choir, which started out as a group of people, grew into a sense of unity over the course of half a year. I think we were able to share our excitement.
Through this experience, I realized that the development of artistic and cultural activities is an important element in order for Inagi to continue to make strides and for more citizens to recognize it as their hometown.
As a member of the group that participated, I am very happy to hear that you would like us to continue this project in the future. We would like to support and sponsor concerts by citizens, for citizens, so that they can continue for a long time.