I was very fortunate to be able to write an arrangement of my favorite saxophone player, Melissa Aldana’s original composition. The chart was played by UNT One O’Clock Lab Band at their 2018 Fall concert featuring Melissa as a guest artist.

Rage is a very strong emotion, and only a few times in my life have I felt rage. I could do nothing else, but write music to express my strong emotion.

Ajisai, Hydrangea, is one of my favorite flowers. The flower changes color by the rain. Even during the rainy season in Japan, this flower brings me a joy, and make me want to go outside to see them.

This world seems wrong to me, but I don’t know what kind of world seems “right” to me. I ask myself the question without the right answer all the time.

When I first moved to the US, I was shocked that a lot of people from the US didn’t know the meaning of August 6, August 9, August 15. I was forced to memorize those dates through 15 years of Japanese education. At the same time, I was shocked that I didn’t know what date Japanese attacked on Pearl Harbor, but most of people from the US knew the date. The attack on Pearl Harbor was not as big deal as Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It is very important to learn/educate people how your country got attacked or hurt, however, I also think it is as important to learn/educate people how your country attacked or hurt others.

And this applies on a smaller scale too, like person to person relationship. 
I find myself that it makes me very uncomfortable to know and remember how I hurt others, but also it’s very important to think and to understand deeply what I did wrong and what I could have done better.

I have the thought for a long time that “peace” will come if everyone in this world starts to recognize that it’s very easy to hurt others, and pay attention to every action we make.