dimanche 26 juin 2011

Live report: 23rd June 2011, JOE HISAISHI(JAP) at Zénith, Paris

Joe Hisaishi(JAP) at Zénith, Paris

Fantastic concert directed by the great Joe Hisaishi. Classical music concerts are always impressive. Please check out my previous post about this series of charity concerts. More info below the pictures.

Joe Hisaishi(JAP) at Zénith, Paris
Joe Hisaishi(JAP) at Zénith, Paris
Joe Hisaishi(JAP) at Zénith, Paris
Joe Hisaishi(JAP) at Zénith, Paris
Joe Hisaishi(JAP) at Zénith, Paris
Joe Hisaishi(JAP) at Zénith, Paris
Joe Hisaishi(JAP) at Zénith, Paris
Joe Hisaishi(JAP) at Zénith, Paris
Joe Hisaishi(JAP) at Zénith, Paris
Joe Hisaishi(JAP) at Zénith, Paris
Joe Hisaishi(JAP) at Zénith, Paris
Joe Hisaishi(JAP) at Zénith, Paris
Joe Hisaishi(JAP) at Zénith, Paris
Joe Hisaishi(JAP) at Zénith, Paris

Joe Hisaishi's first Paris concert featured the French symphonic orchestra Star Pop Orchestra, French choirs and Belgian soloist Helene Bernardy. The great Joe Hisaishi held four worldwide special charity concerts in Tokyo, Osaka, Paris and Beijing for the victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake. All the profits will be used to purchase musical instruments to the children in the disaster areas. 
Near the end of the concert, Mr. Hisaishi performed a song on piano when a short movie was featuring on the screen, showing pictures of the disasters areas alongside thanks for the help and support from people all around the world. You can give additional money to some Japanese women dressed in an Asian outfit in the hall of the venue hanging some boxes and buy some white T-Shirts or tote bags with the official poster on them. Then some credits appeared on screen mentioning people from the staff and orchestras/soloists/choirs from the four concerts.

The concert lasted 2h30min, including the interval. People got a simple setlist on their seats, like in a classical music concert. All the songs were not written on the sheet of paper, I probably forgot some songs, but I think the right setlist is the following one:

SETLIST:
  • Nausicaa of The Valley of The Wind:
    • Opening
    • Requiem
    • Tooi Hibi (Days Long Gone)
    • Tori no Hito (Bird People)
  • Princess Mononoke:
    • Ashitaka no Sekki (The Legend of Ashitaka)
    • Tatarigami (The Cursed God)
    • Mononoke Hime
  • Buster Keaton silent film's: General
    • Mov.1
    • Mov.5
  • Takeshi Kitano's films:
    • Brothers: Raging Men
    • Kids Return
  • Jiang Wen's films:
    • Let The Bullets Fly
    • The Sun Also Rises
[20 min interval]
  • Howl's Moving Castle:
    • Symphonic Variation
    • Merry-Go-Round
    • Cave of Mind
  • Yojiro Takita's film: Departures (Okuribito)
  • Spirited Away:
    • Inochi no Namae (The Name of Life)
    • One Summer's Day
  • Takeshi Kitano's film: Summer
  • Lee Sang-il's film: Akunin (Villain)
  • Ponyo On The Cliff By The Sea: instrumental + choirs + Gake no Ue no Ponyo
[encore]
  • Princess Mononoke: Ashitaka and San
  • My Neighbor Totoro: Tonari no Totoro

+ = One of the best concerts I've ever been to, among the many concerts I attended. Thunders of applauses after each song. It was expectedly good and I unexpectedly had tears in my eyes... A mix of happiness to see Mr. Hisaishi with my own eyes and nostalgy to have the feeling to go back to my childhood in the 1990s. Mr. Hisaishi's smile and enthousiasm are priceless. As conductor, he seems to do some funny little jumps. That concert definately put a large smile on my face until the next day. Really hope to see Mr. Hisaishi again soon.
- = 2h30min was too short! ;) The venue's sound quality. The soloist and choirs singing in English was weird for most of the persons in the audience used to listen to the Japanese versions. I was a bit disturbed when people clapped hands in the middle of "Tonari no Totoro" (I guess it was overexcitement). I wished he played songs from the animated Ghibli film "Porco Rosso" and from "Kiki's Delivery Service".

Keywords to find people's videos on Youtube: hisaishi paris concert.

Please check out some great live reports in French with videos and pictures by:

More pictures here:

2 comments:

Marc a dit…

Thanks for the link to Japan Addiction, higly appreciated!

Amazinglyblog a dit…

@Marc: Hello! You're welcome! ;)