On Tuesday, I saw a couple of singers that I hadn't seen in quite a while on NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）. There was singer Rimi Natsukawa（夏川りみ）known for "Nada Soso" (涙そうそう) and tenor Masafumi Akikawa（秋川雅史）who became famous for "Sen no Kaze ni Natte"（千の風になって）. The two of them along with Kazufumi Miyazawa（宮沢和史）of The BOOM sang a song of hope titled "Asu to Iu Hi ga" (The Day Known as Tomorrow), and considering that the last two entries tonight also involved songs of hope and optimism, I thought that I would finish things up tonight with this one.
The story behind "Asu to Iu Hi ga" started in 2006 when composer Satoshi Yagisawa（八木澤教司）and poet Sakurako Yamamoto（山本瓔子）created the song for an Osaka-based junior high school to perform at the 30th All Japan Chorus Education Study Group National Convention in Osaka itself. However, it took on special meaning in 2011 due to the Tohoku Earthquake on March 11th when the Fukushima Vocal Ensemble Competition that had been slated to be held on the following 19th was cancelled. One of the participating groups, Hachiken Junior High School, performed "Asu to Iu Hi ga" as a musical prayer for recovery.
Later that year, Natsukawa released a single version of "Asu to Iu Hi ga" on September 21st as this very gentle pop song backed by guitar, strings and piano. Depending on your feelings, you may want to have some tissue nearby.
On the same day, Akikawa also released his version of the song and my advice on Kleenex also holds here as well. His take has more of a classical orchestral arrangement. Not surprisingly, both him and Natsukawa appeared on the Kohaku Utagassen at the end of 2011 to perform a duet of "Asu to Iu Hi ga".
An officially recorded duet was a track on Akikawa's BEST compilation released in February 2014.
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