In the past two weeks, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra reached around 12 500 listeners with its concerts in the Japanese cities of Tokyo, Kanazawa, Osaka, Kobe and Hyogo. The orchestra was received with enthusiasm by the Japanese music world. Japan was the final station of a five-week tour in Europe and Asia.

Berlin, 22 June 2011 – The concerts given by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (MCO) in Japan were met with enthusiasm and gratitude by audiences there: “Daniel Harding and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra demonstrated very dedicated playing in Tokyo (…) Their interpretation of the first and third symphonies of Johannes Brahms was the most intense that I had ever heard”, wrote the renowned music critic Yoshiko Ikuma. As recovery efforts continue after the March 11 natural disaster, the MCO’s appearances in Japan took on a special and also emotional meaning for the orchestra as well as for its audiences. The atmosphere in the concerts was laden with earnestness and gratitude – in particular the first concert in Tokyo, where after Mahler’s 4^th Symphony a deep silence was held before the applause broke out.

The MCO, with its democratically organised internal structure, made the decision to carry out the Japan tour as planned after intensive discussions among the orchestra’s musicians, board, and management.

Principal Conductor Daniel Harding, who was in Tokyo at the time of the earthquake on 11 March and experienced it first hand, carried a donation box through the audience at the intermission of each concert. On the initiative of the musicians themselves, chamber music ensembles also played a benefit concert in Kobe.

The MCO and Daniel Harding travelled through Germany, Italy, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan for four weeks with all four Brahms symphonies and a Mahler programme featuring soloist Mojca Erdmann. These programmes were followed by a further week in Hyogo, where the orchestra collaborated with the Hyogo Performing Arts Center Orchestra under the direction of its conductor Yutaka Sado to play Mahler’s Symphony no.3.

The orchestra returned to Europe on Monday. The two weeks in Japan were a moving conclusion to a successful tour. “In this difficult time for Japan, we found it very important to play our concerts there,” said MCO General Manager Andreas Richter. “For all of us, it was very moving to see how deeply people were affected by this year’s disastrous events and how thankful the audiences were for the MCO’s performances.”

The MCO-Musicians share their impressions of the big tour in the tour diary.