Tanimura Shinji: Connecting Asia with Music

It was a large-scale concert, said Tanimura, and there were around 5-6,000 spectators. Singers from different Asian countries and regions gathered in Shanghai and sang in their own languages. He and Mika Chiba sang in Japanese. Other singers included Cho Yong Pil from South Korea, Haitie from Indonesia, Shanghai-born Mao Amin and Sandy Lam from Hong Kong. "Mao Amin and I have been good friends since that concert and our friendship has lasted for a very long time.”

"At the beginning of that concert, the audience might have been unable to fully indulge themselves in those foreign songs. However, the enthusiasm and atmosphere brought by the singers created resonance with the audience. The concert finally ended with a fantastic atmosphere," recounted Tanimura. "Today's concert is very different from those of the past. Many of the audience can sing along with me in Japanese and I feel very happy and moved."

 

Poster for the Asian Music Scene concert in 1994

The first Asian Music Scene concert was held in 1988 and the Shanghai concert in 1994 was the 7th event. Tanimura was not only one of the performers but also a founder of this event, and he told us a story behind the event. In 1981, he performed on a stage in Beijing for the first time and there was a farewell banquet after the concert. A student fan responsible for interpretation asked him why Japan, as an Asian country, often ignored other Asian countries in diplomatic relations. This question provoked Tanimura's reflection on Japan's practice oflearning from America's culture and systems. He began to pay more attention to Asian countries and felt obliged to promote the friendly exchange between them since that event. So later he, together with Moriyoshi Saito, then president of the Mainichi Broadcasting Corporation, one of the first commercial radio broadcasters in Japan, proposed the promotion of understanding and exchange across Asian nations via music. That's how the Asian Music Scene concert was born.

Shanghai is like my second hometown