It is a great pleasure for us 10 musicians from Germany to be with the International Festival of Amateur Orchestras '96 in Tokyo. In fact it will be a great honour for us to represent a part of the world so far away from Japan.
I learned that the works of Beethoven, Mozart and many other composers from Europe are rather popular in Japan. This gives me the feeling that the Friendship Program JAO-BDLO we agreed upon last year in Heusenstamm, Germany, would have been a confirmation of already existing traditional connections between amateur musicians in both countries. Therefore I am sure that this meeting will be a great success.
Thanks to JAO's chairman Motoyasu Morishita, greetings to our music friends in Japan and welcome in Germany again!