The Sony Music Foundation took the opportunity of the New York Philharmonic's current Asia tour to organize a special event on Feb. 11. The concert aimed to provide Japanese youth — some of whom were from Fukushima Prefecture — with first-class live performances by a top-rate orchestra.
Fukushima is still recovering from the Great East Japan Earthquake, which struck on March 11, 2011.
The night began with Benjamin Britten's "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra," led by assistant conductor Joshua Weilerstein and narrated in Japanese by music director Alan Gilbert, whose mother, Philharmonic violinist Yoko Takebe, is from Japan.