2012-07-05: A photographic record of roses still blooming magnificently at Kyoto Botanical Gardens, joined across fourteen years with the experience of hearing 19-year-old violinist Karina Yoshimura perform Mendelssohn with the Kansai Philharmonic on 2026-08-09, including an unforgettable encounter with her family after the performance.

July 5, 2012.
Kyoto Botanical Gardens.
Looking back at these photographs today, there is something that strikes me anew.
It was already July 5, when Kyoto was moving rapidly toward the heat of midsummer.
And yet an extraordinary variety of roses was still blooming magnificently throughout the garden.
This corresponds exactly with my own memories of Kyoto Botanical Gardens at that time.
Today, from my own experience of visiting the garden, once the main rose season has passed, I rarely encounter such an extraordinary variety of roses still blooming together in such abundance as they were on July 5, 2012.
For that reason, this collection is more than simply a series of beautiful photographs of roses.
It is also a valuable visual record of what the rose garden at Kyoto Botanical Gardens actually looked like on that particular day, in that particular year.
And above all, the photographs themselves are truly beautiful.
Roses blooming beneath the strong light of approaching midsummer.
Roses standing vividly against the deep green of the garden.
A single flower creates a world of beauty of its own.
And when many flowers come together, another world of beauty appears.
Throughout 2012, I returned again and again to Kyoto Botanical Gardens and took an enormous number of photographs.
Now, as I revisit those collections one by one, I realize once again how extraordinarily rich that year of photography was.
Yesterday, I attended a concert by the Kansai Philharmonic Orchestra and heard Karina Yoshimura perform Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64.
My seat was in the very center of the second row.
For hearing Karina Yoshimura’s violin, it could hardly have been a better position.
From that distance, I could hear with remarkable clarity the very instant the bow touched the strings, the way her sound opened into the hall, and the beauty with which her violin became part of the orchestral sound.
It was a truly wonderful performance.
She is nineteen years old.
A first-year student at Tokyo University of the Arts.
Yet what moved me so deeply was not simply her youth or her technique.
First of all, her sound itself was beautiful.
And that beautiful sound never sought merely to stand apart from the orchestra.
It breathed with the orchestra, conversed with it, and became part of a remarkable harmony.
To me, something of her humanity — even the beauty of her heart — seemed to reveal itself through the sound itself.
It did not feel as though she was merely playing the violin.
She was speaking through music.
There was also another unforgettable moment that day.
After Karina Yoshimura had finished performing and the concert entered its intermission, I rose from my seat in the center of the second row and stepped into the nearby aisle.
There I saw an older woman and several children talking about taking a photograph together as a keepsake.
I happened to glance at the children.
At that instant, I noticed that one of the girls looked remarkably like Karina Yoshimura.
Immediately I thought, “This must be Karina’s family.”
I asked, and indeed, they were.
The girl who resembled Karina so closely was her younger sister.
Only moments earlier, I had been sitting in that ideal second-row seat, listening to Karina perform Mendelssohn.
The beauty of her sound.
The remarkable harmony between her violin and the orchestra.
And something beyond technique that I felt in her playing — a beauty of spirit that seemed to reveal itself through every note.
All of that emotion was still fresh within me when, quite by chance, I encountered her family.
Naturally, I could not remain silent.
I told them how wonderful I thought her performance had been.
How beautiful her sound was.
And how strongly I felt that there could be no doubt about the remarkable musical talent she possesses.
I found myself speaking to her family with considerable enthusiasm.
I was not simply giving them a concert review.
I was trying to convey, while the experience was still completely alive within me, the astonishment and admiration I felt for the young violinist I had just heard.
It was a wonderfully fortunate coincidence.
I had heard an exceptional performance, and only moments later I was able to tell her family directly how deeply it had moved me.
That is why yesterday’s concert became more than simply an occasion on which I heard Mendelssohn.
I found myself thinking deeply:
Another remarkable young violinist has emerged in Japan.
At only nineteen, here is a young woman capable of producing such a beautiful sound.
And Japan has other extraordinary young musicians whose talents continue to flourish.
Japan is remarkable.
Yesterday, I felt that from my heart.
Today, the music I have chosen for these photographs of roses from July 5, 2012 is also Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto.
The violinist is Anne-Sophie Mutter.
Approximately thirty minutes of Mendelssohn.
After hearing this music brought so vividly to life yesterday by Karina Yoshimura, I now return to it while looking again at the roses of 2012.
Mendelssohn’s violin sings.
At times tenderly.
At times passionately.
And finally, as though racing upward into the light.
The music seems perfectly suited to these roses.
Each flower possesses its own color.
Each possesses its own beauty.
Yet when we look at the garden as a whole, none diminishes the others.
Together, they create a greater beauty.
In that sense, they remind me of something I experienced yesterday in the beautiful harmony between the solo violin and the orchestra.
July 5, 2012.
Kyoto Botanical Gardens.
An extraordinary variety of roses still blooming magnificently beneath the light of approaching midsummer.
Fourteen years later, I understand even more clearly how precious that scene was.
Photography transcends time.
It preserves light that existed only on one particular day and allows flowers that bloomed only at that moment to bloom before us once again, fourteen years later.
The roses of Kyoto Botanical Gardens in 2012.
Mendelssohn performed by Anne-Sophie Mutter.
And the beautiful violin playing of nineteen-year-old Karina Yoshimura, which I heard yesterday from the very center of the second row — the finest possible position from which to experience her sound.
Then, only moments later, the chance encounter with her family and her younger sister.
And there I was, still filled with the emotion of the performance, speaking passionately about the remarkable talent I had just witnessed.
The roses of fourteen years ago and the young musical talent I encountered yesterday.
Past and present were joined by Mendelssohn.
Beauty transcends time.
Photography does.
Music does.
And true talent does as well.