STATION CONCERTS:
Tokyo Station Hosts 200th Performance
JUNE 3, 1996
Top Quality Music for Free!
The sound of a full orchestra resounds through a 15-meter high dome. All 250 seats are occupied. At the rear, commuters on their way home from work stop in their tracks one after another. A crowd forms. The listeners lose themselves in the magnificent music for a full two hours.
The event is a "station concert". It is one evening at the end of April, in a Renaissance-style hall within the station. This evening's performance is the 200th of its kind at Tokyo Station, and the special commemorative program includes Schubert's Unfinished Symphony by the Japan Shinsei Symphony Orchestra. Tickets were distributed beginning at noon, with some ardent fans lining up several hours earlier.
One middle-aged man who had managed to acquire a ticket was beaming. "I used my lunch break to line up. I've already attended around 150 performances. It can be a bit noisy at times, but the atmosphere inside the station is good. It's great to be able to listen to high quality music at no charge!"
A Growing Fad
The first station concert was held in July 1987 soon after the Japan National Railways was privatized and divided into regional railway companies. Station concerts were started with the objective of revamping the old JNR image, which had been left in tatters by enormous deficits and repeated fare hikes. The concerts were also aimed at "letting people get to know the new Japan Railways group."
(Photo: East Japan Railway Culture Foundation)
Commuters have since grown fond of what they affectionately call "ekikon," derived from the Japanese words for station ("eki"), and concert ("konsato"). Held most Tuesday evenings, the 100th performance took place in April 1990. The year-round program was altered in 1992 to six to eight regular concerts each spring and fall.
Station concerts are now an established, chic Tokyo Station event, and they are sometimes participated in by members of overseas orchestras and amateur ensembles.
"Ekikons" have spread to other stations around Japan, including those on non-JR lines. Izumi-Chuo Station in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, is one example, where subway station concerts have been held for the past five years. And to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the Kansai Suisogaku Renmei, an association of wind instrument players, members have been performing at "ekikons" in the Kansai district since June last year.
"Ekikons" have grown so popular that a concert is held at a station somewhere in Japan practically every day. It seems the Tokyo Station concerts are contributing to the diffusion of musical culture all over the nation.