Posted: February 20, 2011
Daiku 2010
In August of 2010 I joined a 10,000 member choir, (Suntory 10,000 Freude), to sing in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony at a concert to be held in Osaka-Jo Hall on Sunday, December 5th.
My singing voice wasn’t what it used to be, but I really enjoyed the weekly practices, and always loved this symphony.
My love of “The Ninth” began when I was 15 years old and first saw Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” while on an overnight trip to Seattle with my friend Shayne and our parish priest, (who, years later, was confirmed to be a pedophile). Shayne and I slipped away from the priest in the afternoon and were somehow allowed into the theater to see the “restricted” movie.
The music, with excerpts from “The Ninth”, was wonderful! Or, as Alex would say, "Bliss. Bliss and heaven."
But I digress.
The weekly choir practice was held near Umeda Station in Osaka with a group of about 400 others. I was the only gaijin, (foreigner), and I didn’t understand any of the instructions except for which page to be on.
Many of the others had been participating for years, and were accomplished singers. When they did an initial run-through on the first day of lessons, it sent chills down my spine. I never dreamed I'd be part of anything like that. And, being in the midst of all those bass, tenor, alto, and sopranos, (I was in the bass section.) was bliss. Bliss and heaven.
Each week the choir-master, Kyohara-san, set aside some time to go over the proper pronunciation of the German lyrics, and one week he was focusing on “Freude”, as in… "Freude, schöner Götterfunken Tochter aus Elysium."
Everyone was doing their best to pronounce "Freude", but it wasn't going too well.
After a while, Kyohara-san stopped the lesson and acknowledged that the “Frrr” sound was extremely difficult for Japanese people to pronounce. He then pointed to me and said something about a Canadian in the group named “Floyd” and how it might be helpful for everyone to practice pronouncing his name, instead.
That’s how I ended up in the middle of about 400 Japanese men and women, all facing me and chanting, "Furoido! Furoid! Froyd! Freude!"
Post Update: November 13, 2021
I enjoyed taking part in these yearly concerts and joined the choir for every "Daiku" from 2010 to 2019.
Unfortunately, the 2020 & 2021 concerts were cancelled due of COVID, but I'm looking forward to the possibility of once-again taking part in "Daiku" in 2022.
