Listened to Tokyo Wind Symphony Orchestra the 67th Regular Concert at Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre.
Today’s conductor is Mr Yasuhiko Shiozawa. The band now have a lot of younger members. Mr Shiozawa’s dignity of the twentieth-century maestro and fresh sound of the band combined together, which brought us a deep impression!
Some younger band people may not know him well. If you went to the “Band CDs” section in the 20th century, so many CDs had a credit, “Yasuhiko Shiozawa, conductor”.💿 He contributed a lot to band development from the “professional side”, I think.
They say, he has a backache now, so he conducted on a chair. It was quite rare that he used a conductor’s music stand. But, he didn’t turn the score most of the time throughout the concert.
The Pines of Rome was the most impressive for me. Every voice was heard very clearly, but the sound was massive as well. The climax with the offstage brass section aroused great excitement!
He usually gives a lot of encore piece. Four pieces were performed including two Latin music, Tico Tico and El Cumbanchero. He let the offstage brasses to play in the El Cumbanchero, which was also “Shiozawa World”!
Don’t get me wrong, but some of his interpretations such as playing ritardando even in March or Latin music, for example, should not be standard in 21th Century. On the other hand, the 21st century follows after the accumulation in the 20th century, of course.
Today’s concert was fusion and harmony of two of them. Fantastic concert, indeed!
