Yamato of Two People CD information

Yamato meets Classics

Hiroshi Miyagawa X Kentaro Haneda, Space Battleship Yamato of Two People to be released on July 24! Limited edition comes with the suite and symphony scores!!

Published on the Sony Music website; see the original post here.

A concert titled Space Battleship Yamato of Two People was scheduled for Wednesday, April 29, 2020 (a national holiday), but was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The project was revived by a concert at Acros Fukuoka Symphony Hall (Kyushu Symphony Orchestra) on Thursday, February 23, 2023. After that, the concert was repeated at the Acrea Himeji Large Hall (Japan Century Symphony Orchestra) on Sunday, March 12th. Another performance was held on Sunday, November 5th at the Opera City Concert Hall (Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra). A live album of the two concerts will finally be released in the year of Yamato’s 50th anniversary.

The pieces performed were Hiroshi Miyagawa’s Space Battleship Yamato Suite and Kentaro Haneda’s Grand Symphony Space Battleship Yamato. The performance was conducted by Miyagawa’s son, Akira, and played by his granddaughter Tomoko with a strong lineup of guests (NHK Symphony Orchestra Special Concert Master Fuminori Shinozaki on violin, Japan’s leading soprano Michiko Hayashi, and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra). A passionate and romantic performance was delivered.

The limited edition is a luxuriously bound booklet that includes both orchestral scores: Symphony Suite [with Iscandar] (72 pages) and Grand Symphony (240 pages). The liner notes also contain a detailed explanation in Japanese and English that elucidates the musical background of Yamato, written by Hidekuni Maejima.

Following the huge success of the 1977 Space Battleship Yamato movie, the monaural recordings of the background music were arranged into an orchestral form and recorded in stereo for the release of Symphonic Suite Yamato in 1977. Later, Miyagawa himself carefully compiled selections from it into a 4-part suite for concerts. Great Love was added from Farewell to Yamato. Iscandar was not included in the suite, but a hand-written score was discovered, so it was specially performed this time.

Grand Symphony Space Battleship Yamato had its world premiere at Yupoto Hall in Gotanda, Tokyo on May 4, 1984, about a year after the release of Final Yamato. Kentaro Haneda composed a four-movement symphony using motifs from Yamato. Demo sound sources were produced using a Fairlight CMI synthesizer from December 1983, and the album was completed on April 20, 1984.

Limited edition box

Two bonus tracks are also included: The Scarlet Scarf (performed in the encore) and Crossing the Beautiful Ocean (performed in the talk show of the first part), arranged by Akira Miyagawa with himself on piano and Fuminori Shinozaki on violin.

This is a permanent collection edition for all Yamato fans.

Simultaneous distribution on 360 Reality Audio

“A new experience where sound pours in from all directions.”

360 Reality Audio is a new music experience that uses Sony’s object-based 360 surround sound technology. Vocals, chorus, instruments, and other sound sources are assigned location information and placed in a spherical space. You can experience an immersive, three-dimensional sound field as if you were surrounded by the artist’s live performance.

Concert highlights in 360 Reality on Youtube: Clip 1 | Clip 2

Akira Miyagawa profile

Born 1961 in Tokyo. Made his debut as a composer with music for shows such as the Shiki Theatre Company and Tokyo Disneyland. He calls himself a stage musician. His representative works include One Man’s Dream, Mitsutokumaru, and Matsuken Samba II. At NHK, he is responsible for the music of Quintet, Doremifa Wonderland, Akira Miyagawa’s Show Time, Chikaemon, and others. He also performs energetically all over Japan with the belief that “a concert is a show.”

Hardcover CD Jacket and liner notes book