Toyota City :  Continuing its longstanding tradition of promoting classical music in communities throughout Japan, Toyota has announced the details of this year’s concerts to be held jointly with local dealerships.

The 2015 Toyota Community Concerts program (running through to April 2016) will comprise 45 performances in 25 prefectures and will continue to feature three types of concerts: challenge concerts, visiting concerts, and invitation concerts. This year’s highlights include concerts held in the recovering areas of Fukushima and Miyagi.

Challenge concerts

Reflecting the needs of their communities, these concerts give amateur orchestras the opportunity to push their limits and perform challenging pieces. Participants will be able to enjoy the experience of performing in large urban concert halls with professional conductors and soloists.

One of these innovative concerts will take place during the Fukushima Recovery Festival, with local amateur orchestra members (mainly from the Koriyama Citizen Orchestra) gathering to perform Mahler’s second “Resurrection” symphony. Their goal is to convey through music the hope for Fukushima’s recovery. The conductor will be Kenichiro Kobayashi, who is from Fukushima, with approximately 200 residents making up the chorus.

In addition, the Sakata Philharmonic Orchestra (Yamagata Prefecture) will take on the challenge of performing Puccini’s opera “Tosca” on March 20, 2016.

Visiting concerts

Contrary to the locally-based challenge concerts, the visiting concerts will see musicians travelling to places where residents have few opportunities to hear live music. These musicians will perform at such unorthodox venues as gymnasiums, hospitals, and other public facilities.

Concerts will be held at Tsubaki Elementary School on the island of Izu Oshima, which was heavily damaged during a typhoon two years ago, as well as disaster-struck areas of Fukushima Prefecture and Miyagi Prefecture. In addition, concerts will also be held at special needs schools, aged care centers, and other venues.

Invitation concerts

For these concerts, exposure is key: seats will be set aside for young people, the elderly, and for people with physical disabilities.

Toyota Community Concerts are held in collaboration with the Federation of Japan Amateur Orchestras Corporation, and are supported by Toyota and local Toyota dealers. The aim is to showcase performances by amateur orchestras in various regions of Japan to contribute to local culture through music. The concerts were first held in 1981, and this is the 35th instance of this compassionate program.

President Akio Toyoda said: “The Toyota Community Concert program has been important to us for more than 30 years. I hope that, working together with Toyota dealers across Japan, we can bring joy to even more local residents through music, as we consider how we can give back to local communities.”

As of the end of March 2015, a total of 1,505 concerts have been held in 185 municipalities in 45 prefectures across Japan, reaching an audience of about 1.22 million people.