HONDA Yuya（1977-2004）

Composer Takuya Honda was born in 1977. He began to learn the piano when he went to France in his childhood. After returning to Japan, he started to conduct orchestras and produce experimental 8mm films as well, and entered the department of composition at Tokyo University of the Arts in 1999. In August of the same year, he founded a brass orchestra “Chanchiki Tornade.”In 2002, Honda created “Yokohama Melody,” a piece for Yokohama City’s PR campaign, and appeared in their CM, too. He studied composition under Kunitaka Kokaji, and received the 18^th Japan Society for Contemporary Music Young Talent Award. He passed away in 2004.

CHANCHIKI TORNADE

Chanchiki Tornade is a 12-member brass orchestra, which also includes keyboards and percussions. It was founded in 1999 by composer Takuya Honda (1977-2004), with the students ofTokyoUniversityof the Arts at its core. While using the Japanese percussion “Chanchiki,” Honda made a variety of music for them, boldly adopting such genre as super-speed Gypsy brass ensemble from the Balkans, Jazz from the US, Brazilian music, or Euro techno. The orchestra’s flexible formation of instruments, each player’s excellent technique, and their performance in unplugged, diversified locations have appealed to a lot of people.    

SHIMIZU Hiroshi(1903-1966)

Director Hiroshi Shimizu was born in 1903, acted mainly during the Showa Period. He placed great importance on “the spirit of taking real scenes,” which defies artificial narratives, lines, acting and direction to the limit. Being contemporary with Yasujiro Ozu, the two belonged to Shochiku andShimizuworked energetically as one of the two maestros, realizing urbane modernism in the film. He directed a lot of movies at his golden period, including melodramas and comedies, but in later yeas he began to look after war orphans (from the Pacific War), and established his own production “Hachi-no-su Film,” in which the children play major parts.