There are three grand pianos in the Tokyo headquarters of Pioneer Corporation, including a model made by Steinway & Sons. What are pianos doing at a corporate headquarters? Well, Pioneer boasts many music-loving employees. Many employees organize the Pioneer Music Festival, a choir, a symphony orchestra, a wind ensemble, and other clubs on a volunteer basis. I would like to introduce the Pioneer Harmonischer Chor that I am a member of.

About 10 years ago, I was a member of an amateur choir because I had loved to sing in front of other people since my childhood. Beethoven, Mahler, and many other excellent composers created wonderful pieces for the combination of orchestra and choir. Over the years I was drawn into the magnetism of music that helped me to enjoy everyday life. One day the long-established Pioneer Symphony Orchestra approached me and asked if I was interested in creating a choir to sing at its next concert.

I had no idea if we could actually attract enough people to sing along with the orchestra, but the thought that other companies wouldn't even consider such an endeavor prompted me to try it. Several other employees and I became the founders and began looking for additional members. We handed out flyers to people in the office, put up posters, and directly approached people we knew had good voices. By the time the choir was launched we had managed to gather over 100 members.

Initially, people who worked closely with each other in the office also ran into each other at rehearsals and were often surprised to discover such colleagues were also singers. Corporate titles don't mean anything in the choir, and I have made friends with some people whom I thought I wouldn't get along with before. After ten months of rehearsal we held our first concert in front of an appreciative audience that packed the main hall at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Place. The choir was scheduled to be disbanded after the event, but many members still excited with that success expressed their wishes to continue, so it started afresh the following year as a permanent group.

Pioneer is a company deeply involved with music and in the last 10 years I have had valuable experiences as a member of this club, including joint performances not only with the Pioneer Symphony Orchestra but also professional orchestras and appearances in operas.

In singing, people are natural instruments. As more people gather, solos become duets, trios, and eventually choirs. People's hearts become as one when performing a piece of music. Even if I am busy at work, I like to continue singing. I would like to be able to sing in such a way as to gently and deeply reach into others' hearts.

The Pioneer Harmonischer Chor will continue performing at various events in the future.