Japanese Businessman to Hold Concert for World Peace in N.Y.

September 18, 2018

New York- A Japanese businessman will hold a concert on his country's friendship with Turkey to call for world peace at Carnegie Hall in New York on Nov. 29.

The concert will feature a symphonic suite called Friendship, themed on events that symbolize the ties between the two countries, said Seiji Mukaiyama, the 72-year-old president of a gas producer and distributor in Kainan, Wakayama Prefecture, western Japan.

He will conduct the suite.

"As there is always conflict somewhere in the world, I want to let people know about the strong ties between the countries," Mukaiyama said, citing two historical events in which people of both countries helped each other at the risk of their own lives.

One occurred in 1890, when the naval frigate Ertugrul of Turkey, then the Ottoman Empire, was shipwrecked off the town of Kushimoto, Wakayama, and local residents rescued survivors from the warship. The other was the 1985 rescue of Japanese nationals in the Iranian capital of Tehran by Turkish aircraft during the Iran-Iraq war.

The events inspired Mukaiyama to compose the suite in 2009.

The upcoming concert will be his first in the United States following performances in Turkey and Italy from 2016.

"A performance at Carnegie Hall, a first-rate venue, will have a great impact," he said.

As a related event, some of the personal belongings retrieved from the Ertugrul wreck site will be exhibited at the gallery of the Nippon Club in New York for three days through Nov. 29.

Details of the concert can be obtained at https://www.nmsinfonietta.org. Jiji Press