Ryu Hirabayashi Hibiki (resonance) CD

Hibiki (resonance) crystallizes Ryu Hirabayashi's wish to create spaces where people can enjoy singing, a commitment he has maintained since his debut as a rising figure in classical music. His seventh album celebrates the beauty of song and the precious moments when voices and hearts resonate together.

The original opening piece, Inori -Utaitsuzukete-, begins solemnly before expanding into a grand performance with a choir. Hanawa Saku follows with a gentle, refreshing interpretation of a song he has continued to sing as a symbol of peace, reflecting on recovery, war and conflict.

Kimi dake o Mitsumeteru -Shiki no Uta 2012-, which appeared on his 2011 debut album and has remained important to him, returns in a new arrangement. This fiftieth-anniversary version of Shiki no Uta sits alongside the song that inspired it, giving the programme a warm sense of time unfolding.

Carefully performed covers of Inochi no Uta, Kokoro no Hitomi and Meguriai accompany five original songs. Among them is Amazing LOVE, newly written by composer Seiko Nagaoka and lyricist Seriko Natsuno. The complete programme contains twelve tracks.

For the closing rendition of Mienai Hane, known from Minna no Uta, more than a thousand children join from two elementary schools whose school songs Hirabayashi composed. Their massed voices bring this heartfelt album to an emotional conclusion.