U.S. Army Japan Band performs at Japan’s most well-known opera venues.

Transcript

Every summer, we put on a free concert as a way to strengthen people’s love of music and hopefully have them learn more about our concert hall. We happen to hear about the U.S. Army Japan Band group Sagami Groove. And learn that they share the same passion for music that we do. So, two years ago, we asked them if they could participate in our concert.

The band played a variety of standard and contemporary jazz tunes including the hit Japanese song, Sukiyaki.

The Fuji Winds, another Uso-J band group, was also at the event and played a few classical numbers in the venue’s lobby before the start of the concert.

I thought the quality of their performance today was amazing. I also looked at the flyer for the event and noticed that some of the performers used to be professional musicians, so this was a truly great performance.

I’m happy that I was able to listen to their performance. It was absolutely fantastic. I really appreciate them performing for us today. – We don’t have many opportunities to see performances, by U.S. Military bands. So, really appreciate that they came here and performed for us today.

It’s always a pleasure performing for the Japanese audience. They’re very receptive to us, they do seem to enjoy our playing. And for us, it is a wonderful experience being so close to them and bringing our craft to the Japanese people.

The Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall organizes the concert once or twice a year as a way to increase interest in the venue and to cultivate new concertgoers.

I hope that the audience took away a little bit of our culture, and a little bit of the music, and maybe even more passion for jazz. I hope they took away an emotional connection with us, and with the U.S. Army.

This is Dustin Perry, reporting for U.S. Army Garrison Japan.