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It's that time of year for carols and cheers, and in keeping with the holiday spirit, the year-end Aobayama Concert on December 20 featured a selection of classical and Christmas music performed, as always, by Tohoku University's multi-talented students, faculty and staff.

The evening began with the usual assortment of familiar holiday tunes by diverse groups including a piano-euphonium duo, a vocalist and an eight-piece female brass band. This festive opening set the stage for the special programme in the second half.

Celebrating the concert's 20th installment and Tohoku University's recent accreditation as Japan's first University for International 雷速体育_中国足彩网￥在线直播 Excellence, a small orchestra performed the second movement ("Romance") of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1, with second-year engineering student Ri Chii as the soloist.

"We have student members on the executive committee like Ri-kun who belong to various music circles on campus, and through their network we were able to gather enough musicians for a small orchestra," said Professor Satoshi Murata from the Graduate School of Engineering, who co-founded the Aobayama Concert series in 2016 with Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Professor Toshihiko Nakata.

"It's a combination of many groups of friends - a nice mix of students, staff and faculty members - and we were able to put it all together quite quickly which I think shows the power of our community."

The orchestra, accompanied by a 23-member chorus, also performed excerpts from Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, which includes the famous "Ode to Joy" movement often featured in Japan's year-end celebrations.

Kaishi Kitamura, a fifth-year medical student, took on the roles of arranger and conductor, creatively adapting the score for the small ensemble.

"For parts that we didn't have the specific instruments for, I just assigned them to other instruments. For example, I moved some parts to the piano, the cello took the parts of the missing contrabassoon and the violins covered for the insufficient clarinets. I think it worked out quite well."

The evening concluded with an audience sing-along of the university's school song, "Aobamoyuru Kono Michinoku."

"What a wonderful evening, a really impressive performance by everyone," said Executive Vice President for Education and Student Support Hirotsugu Takizawa after the concert. "It's great to be able to enjoy the talents of our university members who can produce such beautiful music despite being busy with their research and work."

The full list of performers can be found in the concert programme here (PDF).

Aobayama Concerts are held two to three times a year. They are always free and open to the public. A university-wide call for musicians is usually issued about a month before each concert.

The next one is currently scheduled for February 2025, so Tohoku University members interested in performing or attending should look out for the announcements at the Aobayama Concert homepage or here at the university's website.