- Convenor:
-
Yumi Notohara
(Osaka College of Music)
Send message to Convenor
- Format:
- Panel
- Section:
- Performing Arts
Short Abstract
This panel explores how the classical music world in Japan has expanded and transformed since the postwar period, moving beyond a conventional framework shaped by Western, male-centered high culture.
Long Abstract
Japan’s classical music scene—that is, classical music of European origin—is exceptionally active by global standards, particularly in terms of the frequency and continuity of performances. It has also produced numerous prizewinners at major international competitions, such as the International Chopin Piano Competition, demonstrating that the level of performance in Japan has reached a world-leading level. However, it has been only about 160 years since this East Asian country began to adopt Western musical practices within a cultural tradition fundamentally different from those of Europe. How, then, did this musical culture take root so rapidly? What kinds of developments emerged over these 160 years? And how is this tradition being reshaped in the twenty-first century? These questions form the basis of this panel.
From this perspective, the panel examines how the classical music world in Japan has expanded and transformed from the postwar period to the present. In the decades following the Second World War, Japanese society became increasingly dynamic through reconstruction and rapid economic growth, conditions that supported the flourishing of classical music activities. The panel consists of four papers that address essential components of musical life—composing, performing, and listening—while also considering how the Japanese classical music world has begun to move beyond a conventional framework shaped by Western, male-centered high culture.
All presentations are based on case studies. The first two focus on the expansion of classical music through changes in listening and performance practices: the listening movements of the 1950s and 1960s, and the emergence of casual classical music performances in beer halls and restaurants during the 1990s. The latter two papers demonstrate that such transformations also extend to creative activities, examining music organizations connected to Finnish music and a women composers’ association founded in 2019. Together, these studies illuminate new directions in Japan’s classical music scene through the lenses of cultural and social relativism.
| Abstract in Japanese (if needed) |
Accepted papers
Paper short abstract
This paper explores how classical music—namely, art music of European origin—was cultivated among the Japanese public in the latter half of the twentieth century, focusing on the large-scale listening movement of the Workers’ Music Council (Rō-on).
Paper long abstract
The aim of this paper is to explore how classical music—namely, art music of European origin—was cultivated among the Japanese public in the latter half of the twentieth century, with particular attention to the large-scale listening movement. The Workers’ Music Council, known as Rō-on, was established in Osaka in 1949. The organization sought to cultivate audiences for classical music under the slogan “good music at affordable prices.” During the 1950s and 1960s, Rō-on expanded nationwide, reaching its peak in 1965 with 185 branches and approximately 630,000 members. At this point, it constituted one of the largest music-related social movements in the country. Rō-on played a significant role in the dissemination and institutionalization of classical music, which had been introduced to Japan following the Meiji restoration of 1868.
Although Rō-on emerged in the postwar period, it maintained ideological continuities with earlier approach to classical, including concepts of cultural cultivation (kyōyōshugi) and the promotion of music for workers’ welfare and cultural enrichment. These ideas emphasized the acquisition of cultural competence in European classical music and led to the formation of music appreciation societies not only in major urban centers but also in regional areas. As the organization expanded its memberships, however, its repertoire broadened to include popular genres such as jazz, chanson, and musicals theatre music. Notably, these genres were also of Western origin, reflecting a persistent orientation toward the West in Japan’s postwar musical culture.
This paper examines the aims and activities of Rō-on during the first ten years following its establishment, focusing on two branches: Osaka and Hiroshima. The former, founded in the country’s second-largest city, served as the origin and played a leading role in the movement, while the latter, established in 1954 as the fourteenth branches, illustrates how the organization spread into regional areas.
Paper short abstract
This paper discusses how Japanese music societies focused on Finnish music operate in the field of classical music in Japan. The study challenges the monolithic East-West dichotomy and the power relation it implies, as the promotion of Finnish music has been seen more as equal cultural exchange.
Paper long abstract
Our paper explores the role of societies dedicated to Western classical music in Japan through the lens of bilateral exchange. While Western art music is often framed as global and universal, organizations focusing on specific national relationships challenge this perception. In Japan, there are a few dozen music associations dedicated to individual Western composers. The number of their members ranges from a few dozen to a few hundred.
Our case study specifically focuses on musical exchange between Japan and Finland. Since the introduction of Jean Sibelius’ music to Japan in 1913, various associations and ensembles have been established to promote musical exchange between Finland and Japan. Prominent examples include the Japan Sibelius Society, founded in 1984 by the influential conductor Watanabe Akeo and others, and the Japan-Finland Contemporary Music Society, founded in 2010 by internationally renowned composer Ichiyanagi Toshi. Both aim to foster not only musical but also broader cultural ties.
What cultural functions do such societies serve in Japan? We address this question by analyzing the activities of the two societies and interviewing their members. We are particularly interested in understanding how they view their role in shaping Japan’s scene of Western art music by connecting Finland and Japan. Currently, conductor Nitta Yuri serves as chair of both the Sibelius Society and the JFCMS, and she also conducts the Ainola Orchestra, which performs Sibelius's music. The membership of both music societies consists partly of musicians with connections to Finland and partly of amateurs interested in Finnish culture and music. We are using a survey to find out what factors are most important in members' decision to join a music society and what benefits they feel to gain from belonging to a society.
Through this inquiry, we question the conventional and monolithic East–West dichotomy and instead foreground the more specific cultural dynamics in musical exchange between two individual countries often still viewed as “peripheral” in dominant narratives of Western art music.
Paper short abstract
Focusing on the activities of Josei Sakkyokuka Kaigi (JWCM), a composer-led collective founded in 2019 in Japan, this paper analyses how feminist collaboration and dialogic writing function as modes of knowledge production within the field of contemporary music composition in Japan.
Paper long abstract
Founded in 2019, Josei Sakkyokuka Kaigi (Japanese Women Composers Meeting, JWCM) is a composer-led collective formed by Ushijima Akiko, Morishita Chikako, Watanabe Ai, and Watanabe Yukiko, active within the field of contemporary classical music in Japan. The group established itself as a platform to seek dialogue and mutual support within a professional environment long shaped by male-centred narratives and career models that assume uninterrupted creative labour.
This presentation examines how JWCM addresses structural conditions that shape contemporary composition in Japan but remain largely unarticulated within its professional discourse. Through their editorial and online activities, the group addresses gendered expectations of artistic labour, freelance precarity intensified by Japan’s project-based cultural economy, questions of nationality and ethnicity within a nationally framed canon, and the unresolved tensions between marriage, caregiving, and sustaining a career as a composer. Importantly, JWCM reframes these concerns not as personal obstacles faced by women, but as systemic contradictions embedded in music education, funding structures, and historiography.
The analysis focuses on two self-published journals, “The Dialogue: Arts and Women” (2021) and “This is (not) my lullaby” (2025), alongside the online blog Onna Sakkyokuka no Heya (Women Composers’ Room). Drawing on feminist care ethics (Tronto) and theories of collaborative and situated learning (hooks; Lave and Wenger), it examines how dialogic writing and autobiographical reflection are mobilised to demystify composition as a profession and to question male-centred frameworks of historical and professional legitimacy.
The presentation argues that JWCM’s activities exemplify a collaborative feminist approach to knowledge production that makes visible the social conditions under which music is created. By framing composition as a socially embedded practice shaped by labour relations, care responsibilities, and institutional constraints, JWCM contributes to a broader rethinking of artistic work and cultural production in contemporary Japan.
Paper short abstract
This paper presents a case study of how Western classical music was received, adapted, and consumed in everyday life in Japan by examining 1990s beer halls that hosted live operatic performances and offered middle-class “salarymen” casual access to classical music.
Paper long abstract
This paper examines a distinctive cultural phenomenon in Japan: beer halls and restaurants that featured live performances by classically trained operatic singers. Flourishing in major Japanese cities during the 1990s, these venues offered middle-class “salarymen” casual access to European classical music—including German folk songs, Italian canzoni, operetta duets, and operatic arias—typically accompanied by brief explanations of the lyrics and sometimes sung in Japanese translations. Simultaneously, they provided emerging musicians with valuable professional opportunities, including performance experience, regular income, and the chance to cultivate dedicated audiences and professional networks.
Drawing on contemporary newspaper and magazine articles as well as interviews with musicians, audience members, and restaurant managers, this study seeks to provide a comprehensive account of this localized musical culture. In addition to delineating the scale of the market and the characteristics of typical repertoires, it addresses why this hybrid form of entertainment was frequently regarded as a “good old days” tradition almost from the moment of its emergence in the 1990s. In doing so, the paper situates these venues within a longer historical trajectory, tracing cultural and institutional antecedents that played significant roles in disseminating Western classical music to general audiences in Japan from the early twentieth century onward.
The audience experience in these establishments stood in marked contrast to that of conventional classical concerts held in formal concert halls, which had already become widespread by that decade. By briefly examining related downtown cultural spaces—such as _meikyoku kissa_ (classical music cafés centered on vinyl record listening) and _utagoe kissa_ (sing-along cafés where patrons participate in communal singing, often associated with left-wing labor movements)—this paper sheds light on underexplored dimensions of how Western classical music has been received, adapted, and consumed in everyday life in Japan.