Having returned from Japan, I can say once again what an incredible country Japan is. From beginning to end the people were so friendly, respectful and kind. My fellow musicians were a total joy to be with for a week. Shoichiro Hokazono (euph)  Shinpei Tsugita (tuba) , and pianist Takehiko Yamada, are all musicians absolutely at the top of  their professions in Japan and the two days of rehearsals were fun as well as meticulous as we got ready for our first and perhaps most high profile concert in Tokyo.

There was a packed auditorium, made up of 99% euphonium players. It seemed like every euph player I'd ever seen in Japan was there. It was a fantastic and memorable evening and it was especially good to premiere the new brand new works, Three Momentum by Ferndando Deddos, in Brazilian style with a real passionate rhythmic feel to the outer movements and beautiful tranquillity in the middle movement. There was also a surprise for me when I arrived in Tokyo as pianist Takihiko had also composed us all a difficult but brilliant encore piece, called Memories of Summer 2010 ..clearly a very hot summer. It had elements of musical theatre too, which the Japanese audience lapped up !!

CD signing took 75 minutes and CD sales for the week broke all records for me with nearly 900 sold over the four concerts.

The concerts in Nagoya, Osaka and Fukuoka (where we were joined by the Flourish Brass Band, who did a great job accompanying three difficult concerti in the first half) were also very memorable. The trip was over too fast, but the memories will linger a long time, and we hope for the audiences too, with well over 2000 in total during the four days.

Every concert hall was quite superb, with perfect acoustics and backstage facilities. You name it, it was there. In short it was a wonderful week to be a touring musician and I send a huge thank you to Buffet Crampon Japan, to Kenji, Noriko and all the staff members who came on tour with us, with an excellent instrument display at each venue and who took care of every detail, to perfection. They planned this for over a year with not one detail left unfixed, quite astonishing. I felt so lucky to have had this opportunity to do this tour. There is talk of a follow up tour, such was the success, and I'd love to do it. Videos of some of the pieces are appearing on Youtube and on this site too (see the video section) and here is a link to the facebook gallery I've started for the tour.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=232061&id=653517451&l=e2e2f6e0f6