On September 23, 2026, I attended Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa’s regular concert in Osaka, conducted by Junichi Hirokami, at The Symphony Hall.
It was the first time I had heard Hirokami conduct live.
From the opening work, Mozart’s Symphony No. 25, I was drawn into its sound.
I had learned about this concert while attending another performance at The Symphony Hall not long before.
In other words, I learned about it quite late.
Fortunately, seats 7 and 8 in row F on the first floor were still available.
On the day I learned about this concert, I was sitting in seat 12 in row H, so I was able to check what the view from those seats would be like.
Today, I spent most of the concert listening while looking up at the upper reaches of this hall, which has some of the finest acoustics in the world.
The seats were so good that my eyes might otherwise have been drawn to the orchestra players’ fingering.
I was listening to everything about Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa, which I was hearing for the first time—to every part of its sound.
It was a truly wonderful orchestra.
From its very first sound, I sensed the seventeen-year-old Mozart.
Then people from the age in which Mozart lived appeared, dressed as they would have been then, in the space on which I had fixed my gaze.
Suddenly, I thought of Mozart writing this work at seventeen and of my own seventeen-year-old self, tormented by unhappiness at home, and my heart was filled with emotion.
Dressed as they would have been then, they appeared in the space on which I had fixed my gaze—the space in which I was listening.
I had never had an experience like this at a concert before.
Hirokami and Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa were that wonderful.
In the Liszt Piano Concerto No. 1 that followed, Yukine Kuroki gave a historic performance.
Before attending this concert, I had listened to performances of the same work by Argerich, Richter and Michelangeli.
From Yukine Kuroki’s very first note, I was certain that a historic performance was being born.
Everything was magnificent, yet the rare quality I had felt from the first time I heard Kuroki—the way her sound reaches directly into the listener’s heart—had not diminished in the slightest.
She had retained that quality while reaching a higher level as a performer.
The applause after her performance went on and on, and her encore was wonderful as well.
Anyone who was in that hall today would want to hear this performance once more.
Should a performance of this calibre belong only to the audience who happened to be there that day?
The previous day, a thoughtful person on social media alerted me that Lina Nakano and Sara Watanabe were competing in the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, describing them as “two flowers in full bloom.”
In the videos released by the organizers, you can read the performers’ biographies while listening to their performances with wonderful picture quality and wonderful sound quality—that is, wonderful resonance.
I listened to every work Lina Nakano performed on September 22.
I had been doing nothing but continuing my work every day.
Meanwhile, it is now Silver Week.
This year, the dates have lined up perfectly to make a five-day holiday.
I felt that, during the holiday, I had unexpectedly been given the finest gift.
Here I was, far away in Japan, able to watch and listen to that performance almost as it happened, with images and sound of wonderful quality.
I can watch and listen to it as many times as I wish.
I wish we could have the same opportunity with Kuroki’s Liszt performance today.
Outstanding performances are being given across Japan—indeed, virtually every day.
Yet how many great performances can be heard only by those who made it to the hall, then disappear when that day is over?
Even the people who were there cannot hear them again.
This afternoon, I heard a historic performance of Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 by Yukine Kuroki, Junichi Hirokami and Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa.
After all, to prepare for today’s concert, I had listened to performances by Argerich with Abbado and the London Symphony Orchestra, by Richter, and by Michelangeli.
From Yukine Kuroki’s very first note, I was certain that a historic performance was being born.
That is how extraordinary—how historic—today’s concert was.
Surely someone made a video or audio recording?
If no one did, that too would be another consequence of Japan’s lost thirty years.