Shortly after moving to New Jersey, I became an instructor of the Children’s Japanese language classes for native speakers at Tenri Cultural Institute since I was once a teacher at elementary schools in Japan.

After that, I obtained a master’s degree in Voice Pedagogy and Performance from a music college that focuses on vocal music in the United States. However, after returning to Japan, my vocal performance opportunities in the countryside had drastically decreased due to the pandemic. Even if I offered remote lessons and lectures, not many people in Japan can handle computers and software, even among those younger in age.

I tried to think about how I could do something to make use of my skills even through a computer. At that time, Rev. Michael Yuge, Executive Director of Tenri Cultural Institute, arranged a remote group course for young students, and my dream came true instantly. Curiously enough, right after this course was set, students applying to music colleges joined my studio, and I received an offer to be a lecturer for a local community course.

It was a great pleasure for me to be able to work in hinokishin at Tenri Cultural Institute again despite being so far away. Moreover, by teaching these lessons in English, I am also grateful to be provided the opportunity to use English academic vocabulary, something that I don’t get to do often being from a rural town in Japan.

This course is held once a week for 10 sessions per semester and has five students in a class. After a brief lecture on vocal studies with slides for each theme, the entire class does vocal exercises, followed by private lessons of about 15 minutes each. At the end of the semester, an online recital is held, and each student performs one or two songs with accompaniment and presents the results of their studies in front of the invited guests.

The young students improved significantly over the course of the semester, and I received a lot of energy from them every time. While most members had never taken vocal lessons before, they nevertheless always did the assignments, took notes during the lecture and asked questions when they did not understand something. A few students were interested in only pop music at first, but after their vocal techniques had improved and they grew more confident, they wanted to sing Japanese or Italian classical pieces as well.

The class recital was held with Japanese art songs, musical theater, film music, Italian antique art songs, and opera arias. Guests attended from Boston, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Kagawa, Akita, and Sapporo. With global participation,

everyone seemed to be touched by the performance of these young and hard-working singers.

Following the Spring Semester, we would like to continue to share such joyous times with the Summer Semester. I really appreciate Tenri Cultural Institute for graciously accepting this new project.