Tsunami-torn Reed Organ Miraculously Revives in Japan

Rikuzen Takada in Iwate Japan was hard hit by the tsunami on March 2011 and the whole town was practically wiped off the ground. Hundreds of houses drifted and fishing boats lost in waves.

Miraculously, an old reed organ survived the ordeal. This episode concerns this fortunate organ, how it was discovered, restored and made to produce its mellow sounds again.

The reed organ is a Kaiho model made in the Meiji Era, the type popularly used in church and school and then known for its characteristic mellow sounds.  Aya Murakami (1887-1959), a local forerunner of preschool education and the owner of this organ, founded the Takada Kindergarten. Her son Sango Murakami, 89, donated the organ, one of the three remaining in Japan, to the City Museum in 2004.
The museum was hit by the tsunami this time and the organ was soaked in seawater and the reeds were peeled off. The organ was sent to the Japan Reed Organ Society for repairs and returned to the museum restored in February.

The organ was ready but not proper places for a concert. The entire city was still in the process of recovery and most public facilities were far from ready to stage any decent organ concert. In May this year a newly built municipal community center started functioning.

At long last the organ found a place to the sound . A concert aptly titled "Concert of Miraculously Revived Reed Organ" at the community hall the resounded with lovely tunes everybody knew - "Akatombo"(Red Dragon), "Amazing Grace", etc. The audience joined in a chorus of "Furusato" (My Old Home).

Kazuko Otsuka, 72, choir conductor, was a graduate of the kindergarten and had her own home in Takada flooded deep. "It's exciting the organ is restored this way; it sounds magnificent", she said to Yomiuri Shimbun.

Director Fumito Honda of the museum, 76, said, "Many people have grown up with the sound of this organ and I hope its sound serves to some degree to heal the pains of the tsunami".

The organ was displayed and played on at the Tokyo National Museum in January-March this year and is scheduled to be exhibited in Nagoya with which Rikuzen Takada has a friendship city agreement.

News Source: Yomiuri Shimbun