【3/24/2012 Day 3 Recital at a meeting place in Kesennuma city】

After Mr.Karan spent two days performing piano recitals for two days from March 22 at Ishinomaki city, he moved into Kesennuma.

Today we were blessed with fine weather, as if we had no snow last night. We visited a relatively small temporary housing complex of about 50 houses in Kesennuma city. The installation of the air-conditioning units was going on and so residents looked busy in observing the procedures of the installation. We thanked them for taking time to join the concert in spite of such busy situation. When they heard "Sakura Sakura" or "Koujyou no Tsuki" coming from his piano, some of them hummed tunes together. The scene also made my heart warm. After the recital, he and his audience enhanced friendship over tea.

【3/25/2012 Day 4 Recital at Nakayashi-Kitsusa in Ishinomaki city】

On the final day, when Mr. Karan arrived at "Nakayashi-kitsusa", a community cafe at Nakayashiki in Ishinomaki city, college students and children already waited for him. Children looked at Mr. Karan from distance, being interested in a person from overseas. At first, they were almost impossible to say something to him, but finally they plucked up the courage to say "Hello" to him and got excited by getting Mr. Karan's friendly reply "Hello!" Before the recital started, they help us call in neighbors to join in over the loudspeaker.




When Mr.Karan began preparing to perform pieces, his audience listened to his performance quietly and carefully as if they believed the concert had begun. It seemed that they had longed for the opening, he began performing five minutes earlier than originally scheduled and " Nakayashi-kitsusa " resounded with wonderful classical music.

Mr. Karan started the recital with his speech in Japanese, performed Greek music and finally finished by giving encores, Japanese melodies
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When he began to perform "Sakura Sakura" or "Koujyou no Tsuki", his audience also began to sing. The sweet melodies played by him gave his listeners a comfort and nursery songs of Japan reminded them of good old days. Some of them were touched and shed tears to think of this and that. Every people said "Good!","That's a comfort!"; They seemed to have enjoyed the recital fully.

From what I heard, the tsunami has carried away numbers of pianos in this region and students who had been learning piano at a nearby piano class missed playing piano and joined today's concert. It seemed such circumstances have made today's concert a special event for people in the region. He was so popular that people asked him for autographs and photos taken with him. Although he and children got friendly, they had to say goodbye and children said to him "You'll come see us again, I hope?"," Could you teach us the piano,again?"




Mr.Karan gave local people a comfort and pleasure through music in every place he visited. After his performances, people looked pleased with their eyes bright and expressed their thanks "Arigatou".

We came to realize over the last four days that what we really need is not words but music, music is able to unite us into one.JEN will continue to walk with people to help them renew their courage and hopes.

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