UK-Japan Music Society 20th Anniversary Christmas Concert

The UK-Japan Music Society is presenting a special 20th Anniversary Christmas Concert at St John’s Wood Church in London on Saturday 10 December. This celebrates 20 years of our activities since its founding in September 1992. That year in December, we performed our first Christmas Concert of Messiah with the newly formed UK-Japan Choir and UK-Japan Orchestra at St George’s Church in Hanover Square. At present we have singers in Cambridge, Leicester, London, Tokyo and Belfast, all of whom are being represented in our Christmas performance. We are performing Messiah to remind ourselves of our initial aim, to renew our commitment to continue to promote and strengthen UK-Japan relations through music and also to look at vision for future.

This year we are also very conscious of the devastating effect of the Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, and as a prelude to our Messiah performance I will improvise a piece called Tohoku. This attempts to describe in music the horror experienced, but also the enduring nature of the Japanese people and growth into the future despite this devastation and the loss of so many lives.  The gradual return towards family and industry is expressed, ending with quotation of a Tohoku melody.

Tickets: £15, £10 (£7 concessions)