BY JANELLE GELFAND
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Cincinnati's well-known export, the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, is packing up its trombones and timpani for its third tour to Japan since 1990.
On Tuesday, the Pops begins an 11-city, 12-concert tour. For the Pops, it means visiting the country second only to the United States among markets for its 61 chart-topping Telarc CDs.
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TOUR SCHEDULE
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Thursday -- Shimin Bunka Kaikan concert hall in Maebashi.
Saturday -- Shimin Bunka Center in Tokorozawa.
Next Sunday -- Gijutsu Gekijo in Yokosuka.
Oct. 19 -- Seitoku Gakuen in Matsudo.
Oct. 20 -- Orchard Hall in Tokyo.
Oct. 22 -- Shimin Kaikan in Sendai.
Oct. 23 -- Shimin Bunka Kaikan in Shizuoka.
Oct. 24 -- Symphony Hall in Okayama.
Oct. 27 -- Across Fukuoka in Fukuoka.
Oct. 28 -- Kinran Junior College in Suita.
Oct. 30 -- Suntory Hall in Tokyo.
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For the Tristate, the tour means strengthening business ties with Japan. During Pops concerts, top brass from the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce will be pitching the Queen City as a place to locate Japanese-owned companies.
The tour, says Pops conductor Erich Kunzel, "is so important for the continued prosperity of our community. We're really the only ambassador that can do something like that."
The Pops' Telarc recordings are hugely successful in the Far East. In 1990 the Pops' Grammy-nominated Disney Spectacular album was Classical Album of the Year in Japan.
"Japan is a very strong market for our Telarc recordings and has been for many years," says Mr. Kunzel, who took the Pops to Japan and Taiwan in 1997.
During that tour, the majority of the Pops' audience was under 30, and Mr. Kunzel autographed CDs for hours after each concert.
"What encourages me is the tremendous appearance of young people. They are in tune to our music. This is our future audience," he says.
The soloist for the 1998 tour is Yosuke Yamashita. The jazz pianist ("the Dave Brubeck of Japan," Mr. Kunzel says) will play Rhapsody in Blue in a program celebrating George Gershwin's 100th birthday. Other tour programs will travel through classic Hollywood film scores, the big band hit parade, and Broadway's West Side Story, Phantom of the Opera and Cats.
As it has done in the two other Pops tours (the first was in 1990), the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce has synchronized a delegation with the tour.
"It's a great selling tool for us," says Neil Hensley, the Chamber's director of international marketing. He will take clients from 10 Japanese companies to the final concert in Tokyo on Oct. 30. "We're competing against other metropolitan areas for Japanese investment. An issue that always comes up is quality of life . . . Very few cities in America have a pops orchestra, particularly one so popular in Japan."
The Pops "is a well-known and recognized orchestra, so by promoting Cincinnati, it's promoting CFM also," says Gerard Laviec, president and CEO of CFM International in Evendale, a leading supplier of commercial aircraft engines and a tour sponsor.
CFM will entertain representatives from Japan Airlines, "a very good customer of CFM," Mr. Laviec says.
Also entertaining Japanese clients will be representatives from Fifth Third Bank, Star Bank, Cinergy and the law firm Taft, Stettinius and Hollister.
The Pops will kick off the tour in Maebashi on Thursday and conclude in Tokyo's Suntory Hall on Oct. 30. The ensemble is returning to four cities visited in tours in 1990, when it also traveled as the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and 1997. (Many of the musicians play in both orchestras.).
Last year, musicians enjoyed playing in ultra-modern, shoe-boxed shaped halls in Osaka and Tokyo.
"Osaka (Symphony Hall) is a marvelous hall to play in," says CSO violist Robert Howes. "It's very intimate, and you're surrounded by the audience, who are very attentive. We could really let loose."
Tokyo's Suntory Hall does not have the intimacy of the Osaka hall, but "it is a bit more majestic," Mr. Howes says. "The acoustics are more precise. You have a greater volume, and you feel that the sound is more elegant."
The cost of the tour is $400,000, all of which will be offset by income from concert fees and sponsorships, including that of Japan's Kyokuto Boeki Kaisha, Ltd.
