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During my trip to Estonia from 19^th to 25^th June this year, Sorciere & Sorciere Jr.’s received a formal invitation from the Estonian choir.

Pianist Ms. Yoko Nishii introduced me to Mr. Shuji Kogi, Secretary General of the EU-Japan Fest Japan Committee. She told him about the activities of Isuzu Junior High School (Ise City, Mie) and myself. In March 2023, Mr. Kogi invited the the club I direct, Isuzu Junior High School Chorus Club, to participate in the International Youth Music Festival held in various countries in Europe.

I was aware that the Ise Boys and Girls Choir participated in the International Youth Music Festival in Malta in 2018. However, in order to take my choir to Europe, I wanted to actually visit Europe to see for myself with my own eyes and ears. So I asked to accompany the Senda Pan Flute Choir from Hiroshima for their trip to the Republic of Serbia in the autumn of 2023. The workshops, exchange meetings and rehearsals between Bajić’s Nightingales Choir and the Senda Pan Flute Choir at the International Youth Music Festival in Novi Sad were an eye-opening experience. The choirs opened their hearts to each other and liberated their bodies and minds through music, despite their different national and ethnic ideas.

This experience strengthened my desire to take the Isuzu Junior High School Choir Club to Estonia. Thus, I told the EU-Japan Fest Japan Committee Secretariat that I would like to take the Isuzu Junior High School Chorus Club to Europe with me. However, the school management told me that it would be difficult to send the students overseas since the school is a public junior high school. This made it impossible to take the choir to Estonia during 2024. Nevertheless, my wish to give the young people a new experience at the International Youth Music Festival did not disappear. I came up with a good idea to set up a new junior section in my choir for adults, Sorciere. I immediately put it into action and managed to start Sorciere Jr.. Now we would be able to participate in various choral festivals as Sorciere & Sorciere Jr..

With the support of the EU-Japan Fest Japan Committee, I travelled to Estonia in June 2024 with Ai Shimomura, Masahiro Taniguchi, Hitomi Matsuyama and Mina Suzuki. Ms. Hakoda from the EU-Japan Fest Japan Committee office accompanied us and arranged the meetings with people involved in the International Youth Music Festival in Estonia. Two choirs offered to perform with us at the festival.

One of them was the Laulupesa Children Choir. We visited their base and shared time with the team members who conduct, teach and compose the music. We were surprised by the large number of teachers leading a choir of about 1,000 members. We exchanged information about each other’s choir activities. During the conversation, they promised to warmly welcome us in 2025. Lisa invited us to go and see the Laulupesa Choir’s performance at the Estonian Song Festival 2024 in Tartu, so the next day we headed over there. As I watched the over 10,000 performers and groups line up on stage one after another, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the images of Estonian independence that I had seen on television before. The ‘Singing Revolution’, where people stood up and united to form a large force to spread the resistance movement towards war and peace without violence. A human chain that mobilised two million people and stretched for six hundred kilometres. We lost track of time and watched straight for five hours of performances at the festival. It has carried such a history, and our whole bodies were moved by the magnificent passion for choral singing. Seeing the Laulupesa Choir singing on such a big stage made me even more excited to perform with them.

The other choir is the ETV Girls. On our visit, the conductor, Mr. Saluveer, took time out to show us the choir’s singing. We were impressed by their beautiful voices, but at the same time I felt a little overwhelmed with the thought of sharing the stage with a choir comprised of such wonderful voices. Nevertheless, the Isuzu Junior High School Chorus Club is currently rehearsing a song for the competition. ‘Flowing up the Isuzu River, a pure stream’ (The Isuzu River flows through the area where Ise Shrine is located. Composer Toyotaka Tsuchida composed the scene of trees for building the Ise Shrine being carried in on an Okihiki cart.) Mr. Saluveer listened to the music with great interest and looked at the sheet music. As a result, this song led to a collaboration with the ETV Girls.

In order to create a good partnership with the two choirs, I am also having the composer Mr. Naoto Aizawa arrange the Japanese songs ‘Furusato’, ‘Touryanse’ and ‘Shabondama’ for a three-part chorus. The music scores are scheduled to be ready around autumn 2024. I will share with them when completed.

I believe it is my mission to provide as many of the next generation of children as possible the opportunity to  travel to the other countries, to interact directly with the local people, and to share and empathise the experience together. I am hoping to revisit Estonia in December 2024 to share the above three new choral pieces to these two choirs.