"HIROSHIMA -Sparrow-"

A song-telling concert based on a true Hibakusha story
performed by celebrated Japanese musician, Harumi Yamamoto

Ms. Yamamoto dedicates her performances to peace education, reaching out to a wide range of people. Her powerful musical performances touch the hearts of audiences across the political spectrum. She continuously receives invitations from schools, peace organizations, and religious entities in Japan. She also performs for high-ranking officers of Japan’s Self Defense Forces on a yearly basis. Among her many iconic pieces, the specific piece she will be performing on this trip is called “Hiroshima -Sparrow-”. It was originally broadcast last year on NHK Hiroshima. Since then, she has been performing this piece, hoping to be able to adapt it for a U.S. audience. This will be her second overseas performance after Paris, France.

Hiroshima –Sparrow- is a story about “Uncle Sparrow” who comes to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park every morning to feed the sparrows. He says that it’s his way of atonement for what he did to the sparrows when he was a boy. Uncle Sparrow was orphaned at the age of 10 on August 6th 1945, the day of the Atomic bombing. He lost his father and sister. And his mother has been missing since that time.

He was taken care of by his relatives, but everyone was poor and starved. In order to survive, they netted sparrows in the mountains for food, and he had various jobs to help get by. He managed to graduate from high school during the chaotic post-war period. As an orphan he endured hardships and life struggles that continued into his adult life.

One day, 60 years later, Uncle Sparrow was at his sister’s tomb praying for her, and a bunch of sparrows came up to him. So, he fed them. Then another day he was at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, and the same thing happened. He found comfort and redemption in the interaction with the sparrows. Since then, coming to this park to feed the sparrows became his daily routine. That is how he was nicknamed “Uncle Sparrow”.

He cites famous Issa Kobayashi’s haiku:
“Come with me to play a poor sparrow without parents”

Performance Schedule

SEPTEMBER 24, 2019
Tuesday, 7:30 - 9:00 pm (doors open at 7pm)
Church of the Ascension
36 Fifth Ave. & 10th St., New York City

SEPTEMBER 27, 2019
Friday, 8:00 - 10:00 pm (doors open at 7:30pm)
Mary House, The Catholic Worker
55 E 3rd St. b/t 1st Ave. & 2nd Ave., New York City

OCTOBER 1, 2019
Tuesday, 6:30 - 8:00 pm (doors open at 6:00pm)
New England Peace Pagoda
100 Cave Hill Road, Leverett, Massachusetts

These events are open to the public.
The performance will be in Japanese with English subtitles.

Harumi Yamamoto lives in Minobu town, Yamanashi Prefecture, working as an artist, singer-songwriter, and music instructor.
   Under the theme of “Seize the day,” she writes lyrics, music, and narrative scripts that focus on Japan in 1945. She created her “song-telling” technique to convey the motif of “war.” She communicates this message through live performances that let listeners travel back in time to 1945. Her song-telling performances are based on historical facts. She holds concerts at schools, seminars, and various all-age events, such as her “Peace Studies” concerts, which have been featured by the media in documentary and news programs.
   One of her works, “Hiroshima -Sparrow- I’ve Been Alone Since That Day” was featured as a one-hour radio program, “Special Radio Feature on Atomic Bomb Memorial Day,” for the 90th anniversary of NHK’s Hiroshima station on August 6th, 2018. This particular work looks back on an elderly man’s time as a young orphan who survived the atomic bomb, following his life in post-war Hiroshima.
   In 2015, she participated in the conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and a demonstration at the United Nations Headquarters in NYC, acting as a spokesperson for atomic bomb victims. Since then, having been aware of the need to connect people together to think about peace from a global perspective, she launched programs for people to learn about “war and peace” together, extending an invitation to Veterans For Peace (U.S. veterans and their families) to participate.
   In 2019, she launched a project to create a peace-education program for children all over the world to learn together. She has her own music school, where she teaches original music programs as a special music instructor. She also teaches chorus at elementary schools and eurhythmics at nursery schools in Yamanashi Prefecture. Her non-profit children’s chorus group hosts regular concerts, volunteer concerts, and special concerts where youth around the world communicate together through chorus under the theme “Peace and the Power to Live”.

President of “Atelier Music School”
Representative of Minobu Junior Chorus, a non-profit organization
Member of the Yamanashi Cultural Learning Association Council
Member of the Minobu Town Committee of Child Care

　 Visit her at http://kotodama.halfmoon.jp