Commission
Commissioned by Azabu Alumni Orchestra (amateur orchestra)

Performance duration
14′

Premiere
August 12, 2019, Tokyo, Suntory Hall Main Hall
Conductor: Masato Suzuki
Azabu Alumni Orchestra

Year of composition
2019

Instrumentation
str(15.15.10.10.8) – assistant performoers(by wind instrumentalists and percussionists) – audience

Commentary
I usually carefully observe the changes in the society around me and the community I live in – which can be both short term and long term perspectives – and want to find out why. And if I can see a problem in the structure of the society or country from that, I may create a work of art on that theme, with the desire to appeal to others.

Let me explain the process of experiencing this piece. First, the audience will be blindfolded just before the start of the performance (it’s not compulsory, but the composer would like them to do so whenever possible). In other words, the audience will listen to the performance with their vision blocked, and the music coming from the string orchestra (which is supposed to be playing on the stage) is quite low in volume, with only chords, and the changes in the constituent and length of those chords, as well as the changes in the length of rests between chords, are minute. Therefore, the audience (who can enjoy this kind of situation) will naturally have keenly senses other than hearing. In such a very quiet hall, after a short time has passed since the start of the performance, available wind and percussion players (and the composer himself, if he is present) will enter from the backstage as assistant performers, without making a sound, and will be dispersed throughout the hall. The assistant performers will walk around the hall as quietly as possible, read, eat and drink, play games (anything from chess and board games to portable game consoles), blow bubbles, etc. (but only with the hall’s permission). In addition, they will take pictures (not only still pictures, but also video) of the hall using a photo application on their smartphones (which does not make a shutter sound), and post them in real time on SNS such as Twitter and Instagram with a exclusive hashtag. After a while, the assistant performers leave the stage offstage, out of the hall, before the string orchestra finishes its performance. With the audience’s vision blocked, those with good intuition or sensitivity might be able to vaguely notice that something is going on around them, but they will not be able to grasp the specifics because it is forbidden to take off the blindfold until the performance is over. Accordingly, the audience will then be able to see what was happening in the hall during the performance by actively viewing photos and videos on social networking sites during the intermission and after the performance.

Why did I compose such a piece where the music that the audience can hear is only slightly changing, and where the audience’s view is blocked so that they are not shown what is happening in real time during the performance, but are made to grasp what is happening by actively viewing photos and videos on social media after the performance? The reason is that I want people to be more aware and sensitive to the things that are hard to notice in their daily lives, the things that they see but don’t think about because they take them for granted, and the things that are slowly but surely changing in our society.

I have lived in Japan for many years now, and the parts of my life that are familiar to me are slowly but surely changing. For example, when I was in elementary school, most of the people who worked part-time at convenience stores and fast food restaurants were Japanese (as far as I am aware). As I progressed through junior high school, high school, and university, the part-time workers at such restaurants shifted from Japanese to Chinese and Korean, and recently, I have the impression that they are shifting even further to Southeast Asian people. At the time of composing this piece, I was living in my parents’ house in Yokohama, where I have lived for more than 20 years, and I saw more foreign people living in my neighborhood than ever before.

As we can see, there are many foreign people working in these easily visible areas, but in fact, there are also many foreign people working in places far away from the city that we cannot usually see, such as factories, factories, plants, workshops (Examples of these include food processing plants, delivery centers), restaurants etc. Many of them are foreign students (and technical intern trainees, as described below). The reason for the increase in the number of foreign students is the “Plans to host 300,000 international students in Japan” formulated by the Japanese government in 2008 as part of its “Global Strategy” to develop Japan into a more open country to the world. As a result, many foreign students have come to Japan, but many of them come with debt, and must pay tuition fees in addition to repaying their debts. Therefore, they have to work illegally, far exceeding the maximum working hours of 28 hours or less per week allowed for foreign students (wages are also low). As a result, they spend most of their time going back and forth between school and work with little time to sleep. However, if they don’t work, they have to pay Japanese language school and dormitory fees, and if they can’t pay, they will be expelled from school and forced to return home. In some cases, schools arrange part-time jobs forforeign students.

In addition to the problem of foreign students, there is also the problem of technical intern trainees. They too work to support Japanese industry: in factories, plants, mills, workshops, on farms, etc.
Many of the technical intern trainees come to Japan with debts, and many of them are forced to work in an environment of low wages, long working hours, and almost no holidays. They can also be subjected to violence and harassment from the company. In the case of women, there are also victims of sexual assault. Moreover they can be forced by their employers to pledge not to have romantic relationships, not to get pregnant, not to own mobile phones or computers, not to form trade unions or go on strike, etc. If they protest, they are forced to return home, and they are left with only debts, so they are placed in an environment where it is difficult for them to rebel against their employers, and they are forced to work there. In other words, human rights violations are rampant. In Japan, technical trainees and foreign students are simply used as labor, not treated as people.

These problems are sometimes reported in the news, but perhaps because of the overflow of information, many people are quickly swept away by other information and forget about it, or perhaps they pretend to ignore it. Some people say that Japan has a wide variety of services and that life is much more convenient than in other countries. But what makes this service and convenience possible? I sincerely hope that we Japanese need to face up to who makes Japanese services, convenience, and industries possible, and what we are sacrificing now.

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