Testimonial by Rene Torres, alumnus of Academia
About the Mexico-Japan Friendship Tour and Concerts and Tour in 1985.
Photo: Rene Torres at age 11, with Prof. Yuriko Kuronuma
We were twelve kids with green blazers and small bags that read “JAL”, our violins flew over Alaska to arrive in Narita, where we were met with a masked ball and a dinner which I can barely remember because I was so sleepy. But I remember Tokyo and the hotel where Axel got stuck a whole day in the elevator, where we wore a yukata for the first time in our lives. Nagoya, Yatsugatake, Motegi, the islands of Okinawa, Yamaguchi, Kakogawa, Kagoshima, Utsunomiya, Fujisawa and the great welcomes we never missed. Mr. Onuki who always appeared when something was needed and Mr. Tanaka, whose faces I will never forget when they finally found me when I got lost in the crowd at the Zoo. In my list of memories are Tonatiuh De la Sierra always at the piano and Professor Mario Rodriguez Taboada and his baton. Of course Professor Noriko Iwamoto, Yoshiko Ukiike, Sei Hatano and well, our dearest, great and tireless violinist, educator of art and seeder of hopes and joys for our souls….Kuronuma Yuriko Sensei!
The concerts and rehearsals we played almost daily, but always leaving space to get to know unforgettable places of the fabulous country that is Japan. I can recall streets full of cherry blossoms painted in pink and white, and us being always on a bus carrying cameras, even to the bathroom. Our bath in the ofuro of Motegi was documented. And coming back to the theme of music, I don’t know about the others but whenever I listen to the Gipsy Airs of Sarasate, I’m transported to an imaginary concert hall which is almost empty and I get a feeling of nostalgia like that of homesickness. I don’t know if it has to do with the fact that we were away from home and today I have spent quite some time living away from Mexico. Adrián, Daniel, Carlos, Mario, Paulina, Yuri, Javier, Danielito, Axel, Sebastián, Eduardo and René. La Folia and the three musketeers, which is not the same 20 years later. That Sonata by Handel which we played until we dropped, still has tastes of Japan. The Air Varié, Long Long Ago, Vivaldi, the Double Concerto by Bach, Hayakawa, of course the soloists, Mendelssohn, Wieniawski and well, it was playing and playing and surely the years to follow had something to do with this but in those days something took over me which is still within me. It’s like a hunger to want to be close to music. Afterwards I tried the guitar and other styles and instruments, but music is my faithful companion since then and it took me many years to realize it. And I feel that it was those first whole stages are so ingrained in my soul that they are mainly what I have been seeking.
Memories are treasures. I can still vaguely see the Japanese children trying to communicate with us through signs and us trying to answer in our pseudo-English. I think that in Yatsugatake we broke a piñata. And we played native drums in some other place. We ate some enormous strawberries in a greenhouse, we went to the A-Bomb (atomic-bomb) Museum in Nagasaki and I will never forget the high-tech wonders we saw in those gigantic Tokyo stores. We had name tags in Japanese and there came a moment that with the syllables of everybody’s names we could even decipher some Japanese words. Once they took us to make clay figurines and to a Marine Museum. Again my memory is not very clear anymore but it was incredible that we would be welcomed everywhere with a wreath of Origami and presents. I never met so many kind people anywhere else. Even in the houses of the families where we would spend a couple of nights there was always incredible hospitality and of course, presents. At sometime we went to the movies to see a film in Spanish about a beehive or something like that. And to a concert of the prodigious Vadim Repin. I was the youngest of all, so the memories must be bigger for the rest. It occurs to me that if one day we are all or the majority in Mexico and we can get together, we should do so and try to get a hold of those videos and sit down and watch them. And of course play together again.
Academia Yuriko Kuronuma A.C. Violin, viola & violoncello individual lessons.
Presidente Carranza #52-7, Coyoacán. México, D.F. Tel/Fax. (5255) 5554 7750
