Artists & Programme
There is hardly a country that holds classical music in such high regard as Japan. That was one of the reasons for bringing Sea & Music here for the first time in almost twenty years. What has emerged is a programme as varied as it is artistically deep. Maxim Vengerov, Marina Rebeka, Bomsori, Arturo Chacón-Cruz, Jan Lisiecki and Chu Yi-Bing, all of them names at home in the great concert halls of the world. On this journey you will hear them from a few metres away. To express our admiration and respect for Japan's tradition and its commitment to classical music, we have also assembled an ensemble of musicians from the country's most renowned orchestras: the Sea & Music Orchestra. It gives us the chance to experience the devotion with which classical music is played in Japan.
“Maxim Vengerov plays the violin with preposterous ease. But it is the quality of ecstasy he brings to music that might just make him the greatest virtuoso of them all.”
The Independent
“Vengerov embodies the summit of violin playing, moving in a sphere of technical brilliance and at the same time of deep emotional expression, carried by a fiery intensity.”
Le Temps
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Concert & Encounter at the
Higashi-Hongan-ji Temple
Kyoto | 28 October 2027
One part of this musical day in Kyoto takes place in the Goei-do itself, the temple's main hall. At 76 metres long and 38 metres high, it is the largest wooden building in Kyoto and one of the largest in the world.
The other part moves to the temple's Reception Hall, an underground space completed in 1998 by the architect Shin Takamatsu. Its only visible trace above ground is a skylight set into the earth, a place where historic and contemporary architecture meet in an unusual way.
Maxim Vengerov, together with Nobutaka Yoshizawa on the koto and Junya Okochi on the shakuhachi, shapes this two-part experience: Western and Eastern sound worlds across two remarkable spaces, beneath a roof that has witnessed both silent and sounding devotion for centuries.
Included in your voyage:
28 October, Kyoto ( from Osaka), with a guided temple visit and lunch.
Junya Okochi
Junya Okochi studied shakuhachi at the Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo and completed the traditional music programme of the broadcaster NHK. A boundary-crosser in the best sense, he composes his own works and performs with symphony orchestras as readily as with dancers, theatre-makers and calligraphers. In 2012 Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs honoured his work for cultural exchange, and since 2018 he has recorded for a major label.
Nobutaka Yoshizawa
Nobutaka Yoshizawa first sat at the koto at the age of seven, in his home prefecture of Tochigi. Today he is one of Japan's foremost players of the 17- and 20-string koto, instruments that give the traditional sound an orchestral depth. His career has taken him to the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in England and the MATSURI festival in Gaziantep, Turkey. In 2016 Tochigi named him an official "ambassador for the future", an honour for artists who carry Japanese culture into the world.
The Sea & Music Orchestra
Shimonoseki | 3 November 2027
A hall shaped like the sea
For Sea & Music 2027, our first ever voyage around Japan, we have created an orchestra that will exist in this form only once. With Mikio Unno we have brought together musicians who hold senior positions in some of Japan’s most renowned orchestras and who come together as a single ensemble for this journey alone.
Mikio Unno grew up in a family of musicians. He is a versatile cellist with a broad repertoire spanning Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and contemporary music. Performing more than 100 concerts annually, he is a frequent guest principal cellist with major orchestras including the Tokyo Philharmonic, Japan Philharmonic, and Kanagawa Philharmonic, alongside an extensive career in solo and chamber music. His activities also include historical performance on period instruments, arranging, composing, conducting, and improvisation. He is also a lecturer at Toho College of Music.
“He reaches to the essence of a work and plays with a conviction that seems to seek its answers from the depths. ”
Ongaku no Tomo
(one of Japan’s most respected music magazines)
“For Sea & Music’s first ever cruise in Japan, I have brought together fellow musicians who are active at the forefront of orchestras across Japan to form an ensemble. We hope you will take in Japan’s beautiful natural scenery, and we will deliver our very best performances to you all.” Mikio Unno
A premiere on Culture Day
The concert takes place on 3 November at the Umi no Hall, the Hall of the Sea, the great hall of the Dream Ship, Shimonoseki’s cultural and educational centre on the shore of the Kanmon Strait. Since it opened in 2010 the 805-seat hall has been the city’s foremost address for classical music, opera and dance, and its architecture was deliberately shaped after the image of overlapping waves and a deep blue sea, so that the name is more than a label.
3 November is also Culture Day (Bunka no Hi), one of Japan’s most significant public holidays. It goes back to the proclamation of the post-war Japanese constitution on 3 November 1946 and was formally established in 1948 to honour the art, freedom and peace that the constitution enshrines. The high point of the day is the presentation of the Order of Culture at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, with which the Emperor personally recognises outstanding achievement in art, literature, science and society, the country’s highest cultural distinction. Across Japan, museums and galleries open their doors free of charge on this day, and cities and towns hold festival processions.
For people in Japan, Culture Day is far more than a day off. It is a collective moment in which the country pauses to celebrate the artistic and intellectual achievements that have shaped its identity. That the Sea & Music Orchestra gives its very first concert on precisely this day adds a further layer of meaning to the premiere. Few places and few dates could suit it better.
Included in your voyage: 3 November, Shimonoseki, Umi no Hall.
See Day 9 in the itinerary