Orchestra

The Tokyo Institute of Technology Orchestra is one of the oldest orchestras in Japan, having been founded in 1925. Many of our members, mainly in their first to third year of university, are experienced musicians, but we also have some beginners as well as established members who take up what is a new instrument for them. Even if you've never played an instrument, you can improve through practice with other students in the same year as you and older.
We want everyone to come together and play, so the orchestra has many members who are students at other universities, and we have regular concerts twice a year.

Our university orchestra is student-led, and we also create our own music. It is not easy to perform music that moves people, and we are conscious, but proud of, our long history. But we want to offer our audiences true quality music. The selection of pieces for each concert takes into account the balance and order of each instrument, creating programs that end with a solid finish.

Our principal conductor and training teachers help us improve the quality of our performances through theory-based instruction and their long years of experience. Members strengthen their bonds with each other through talking about their feelings and views of the music we play, working together to create a piece. The sounds we play with our fellow members, whom we have spent many hours with, is truly precious. These bonds among our members are the biggest appeal of the university orchestra. There is no doubt that they will be a lifelong treasure.

String section members

String instruments like the violin, viola, cello, and double bass, are in this sections, which practices for about three and a half hours on Wednesday afternoons.

Players in the club room

Woodwinds like the flute, oboe, clarinet, and bassoon belong to this section, which practices for about six hours on Sundays.

Practicing in sections

Brass instruments like the trumpet, trombone, French horn, and tuba, and percussion instruments, belong to this section, which practices for about three hours of Wednesdays and Saturdays.

The orchestra's main events are the regular concerts, our training camps, and the university festival.

Our training camps are held at Shiga Highland twice a year, during Golden Week in spring and our summer break. Our spring training camp focuses on welcoming new members and concentrated rehearsals for the upcoming regular concert at the end of May. At our summer training camp, we put on a performance at the Shiga Highland College Concert, which we have taken part in ever since the first one, and where new members perform in public for the first time.

Between the performances at the university festival, our planned events, and the ensemble concert at Suzukake Science Day, as well as concerts at local elementary schools, each section of the orchestra gets its chance to shine.

Run through a rehearsal

Our regular concerts are held at an external concert hall, and run for about an hour and a half. These are attended by large numbers of people each year, with most years having about 1,000 people coming. There are no words to express how it feels to perform here after all the hours spent in rehearsals with your fellow musicians.

Our goal is to give a performance that will show even people who spend a lot of time with orchestras the allure of music and the appeal of the orchestra. Some of you may feel that an orchestral concert is a rather high bar to clear, but we want to show as many people as possible how wonderful orchestras are through things like the accessible concerts we put on at the Tokyo Tech Festival.

A university orchestra is a little bit different to other amateur orchestras made up of adults. Here, the orchestra is led by the students, and we all create music together over many hours. We normally accept new members during the start of the academic year in April. Lately, with the rise of social media, a lot of members have developed an interest in us from that. And you might be surprised how many members are beginners. We can offer anyone who wants to join the fun life of being in an orchestra.