Andrew Mark Sauerwein

Kibō (or Kibou, Japanese for “hope”) is a meditation on the aftermath of the notorious earthquake and tsunami that devastated parts of the Japanese coastline in 2011.  As things happened, I had visited Tokyo in May 2010 with a posse of Belhaven University music students and faculty.  I have been honored with accounts from friends who took part in the relief effort and continue to bring hope and healing to wounded people.

The first movement is an imagined portrait of the experience.  The middle movement ponders the long, bewildering journey of coming to terms with ruin and loss.  The final movement, which paraphrases and elaborates on a Japanese folksong, points toward the power of God’s grace to restore shaken lives and spirits.

This work was composed for my former student and close friend, violinist Rachel Reese, who had been with me on the 2010 trip to Japan.  Subsequent to our trip, she spent two years in Japan, bringing life and healing to the Japanese people in the wake of their disaster.  Her affection for (and improvisations on) “Furusato” inspired its formative role in the third movement.