Canadian scholar Levi McLaughlin remembers the intensive Sunday rehearsals he had in the early 2000s with a men's orchestra run in Tokyo by the lay-Buddhist organization Soka Gakkai.

Because Soka Gakkai's charismatic leader Daisaku Ikeda is a Beethoven aficionado, the orchestra mainly played Beethoven symphonies. A violinist trained in Toronto, McLaughlin was the only foreigner in the Japanese religious group's music world.

"The rehearsal was from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Sunday, with many hours of Beethoven. Really intensive, amazing training and experience," recalls McLaughlin, the first nonmember, non-Japanese researcher to spend years investigating non-elite Soka Gakkai members as well as Komeito, the political party backed by the group.