Before the Shore Lullaby's Debut, a Final Rehearsal — 37 Voices, Still Not Told What the Words Mean
A final joint rehearsal for the Shore Lullaby, set to receive its first public performance at Sunday's Arrival Remembrance Day ceremony, was held on the 5th at the Bay Community Hall. The 37-member choir, centered on students from Bay Third Middle School, ran through the piece under the transcriber, music teacher Kishiura Ushio, 74, who continued coaching by ear rather than by written translation, as previously reported. Organizers reconfirmed that the lyrics' meaning will not be read aloud at the ceremony.
With two days remaining before the Arrival Remembrance Day ceremony, the choir set to perform the Shore Lullaby held its final joint rehearsal on the afternoon of the 5th at the Bay Community Hall. As previously reported, the 37-member choir combines 28 students, most of mixed drift-settler heritage, from Bay Third Middle School with nine students selected through open recruitment who are not of drift-settler background. The group ran through all thirteen verses twice in the same formation planned for the ceremony. Transcriber and music teacher Kishiura Ushio continued coaching entirely by ear, as before, without handing out phonetic guides or translations.
Staff from the city office managing the ceremony, previously reported, sat in on the rehearsal to align entrance and exit routing with the actual event. The first full run-through had several spots where voices overlapped unevenly, but by the second run they were nearly aligned, prompting Kishiura, rare for her, to give a small nod. One student said, "The second time was somehow easier to sing than the first. I don't know why, but it felt like I fell into step with the girl next to me."
Kishitani Tane, 101, the first-generation drift settler previously reported as planning to attend Sunday's ceremony as a "listener," sat in briefly on the rehearsal, partly to check on her own condition. She listened from the back of the room in a wheelchair and was seen pressing a hand to her eyes near the end. Asakura Misaki, 20, the volunteer driver previously reported as her escort, recalled, "Seeing Kishitani-san tear up, I could tell it changed the students' expressions too." Kishitani herself said afterward, briefly, "I can't sing, but hearing it still moves something in me. That much hasn't changed in fifty years."
Between run-throughs, Kishiura told the students, "I'm still not teaching you what the words mean today. A song isn't the same thing as talk." As previously reported, only three words across all thirteen verses — sea, window, and way home — have been tentatively identified, and official reports use the term "undetermined" rather than "unknown." No translation will be read aloud at the ceremony either, a choice previously reported as belonging to the first generation. One student in the choir said, "It felt strange at first, but now singing without knowing the meaning somehow feels right."
The choir includes the younger sister of wall-racing athlete Migiwajima Rui, 17, as previously reported. The choir had clearly noticed that her sister reached a personal-best ninth tier in Round 20 the previous night despite the team's loss. "She's the type who'd rather I not bring up the result," the sister said briefly after practice, "so today I just focused on the song."
The ceremony begins at noon on the 7th at Kishihama Park, opening with the lullaby. Today's rehearsal also reconfirmed rain contingencies and routing around the equipment from the concurrent spring-tide observation campaign in the bay area. Kishiura closed the session by telling the students, "All that's left now is the real thing. I think today's voices were the best yet." As previously reported, the original score remains kept at Kishiura's home altar, with no plan to make it public before her death.
