JQ Magazine: JQ&A with Grammy Winner Arnie Roth on ‘Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy’
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“I can honestly say that I currently spend much of my career involved with Japan on so many projects, that I almost cannot imagine what it would be like without all of our Japanese friends and colleagues.” (Courtesy of Attila Glatz Concert Productions)
By Vlad Baranenko (Saitama-ken, 2000-02) for JQ magazine. Vlad is an avid photographer.
Sephiroth, meet Maestro Roth.
On Jan. 31, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center will hold a double performance marathon of Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy, an official concert program of the beloved video game series, also coming to Boston (April 24) and St. Louis (May 15). Featuring special guest series composer Nobuo Uematsu and featured soloists RIKKI and Susan Calloway, the show will feature game clips playing to the performance of a symphony orchestra, choir and renowned vocal talent, all under the direction of Grammy Award-winning conductor (and Mannheim Steamroller member) Arnie Roth.
Roth’s resume includes a long list of music direction for television, film, and video games. A veteran collaborator on pop, classical, R&B, rock and musical theater, Roth has also worked with some of the world’s greatest ensembles like the Tokyo Philharmonic and with legendary video game composers including Uematsu, Yoko Shimomura (Kingdom Hearts), Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill), Yuzo Koshiro (Streets of Rage), and Koji Kondo (Super Mario Bros.).
In this JQ exclusive, Roth shares the experience of bringing together 27 years (and counting) of Final Fantasy to the concert stage, working with Uematsu and others in the Japanese game industry, and his all-time favorite Japanese food.
How did you get involved with the Final Fantasy franchise?
In 2004, as music director of the Chicagoland Pops Orchestra, I was researching various possibilities for new and exciting programming for our concerts. A colleague mentioned that concerts of video game music had been taking place in Japan on a very regular basis for many years, since 1999 or maybe even earlier. After checking into Final Fantasy concerts, we decided to try a concert in Chicago in February 2005. That concert was titled Dear Friends: Music from Final Fantasy, and our concert sold out completely. That was my first time meeting Nobuo Uematsu and conducting his music, and we immediately connected. Immediately after that concert, I was engaged to conduct several more of the Dear Friends concerts in North America, and then my relationship with [Final Fantasy publisher] Square Enix (SQEX) and Uematsu grew to be a very important factor, with concerts in Japan for SQEX, and ultimately the development of the Distant Worlds project.
Did you have any exposure to the Final Fantasy games before directing and conducting the Tokyo Philharmonic in 2006?
Yes. See above for my earlier involvement with the FF franchise and SQEX and Uematsu. Another little-known fact was that I worked on the original release of the Halo video game music score, both as a violinist and arranger.
What do you think about Final Fantasy and the musical choices for the games?
The music is stunning! Final Fantasy is a role-playing game, and the combination of this type of game, along with having individual themes or leitmotifs for every character, battle, quest, relationship, and environment, has made the music of this franchise extremely beloved for the players.
Life After JET: Setting Up Shop in Japan
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Benjamin Stock (Hyogo-ken 2005-2007) is International Development Manager at Access Corporation, a Hyogo-based study abroad agency. He and his wife, Rebecca Stock (Hyogo-ken 2011-2013), run Fresh Stock, a Japanese stationery web shop, from their home in Kobe.
After living in Japan for over six years, I’m excited to announce a long-time desire of mine has finally become a reality: my wife and I recently launched a web shop. Our business is called Fresh Stock, and we opened with a small selection of modern, made-in-Japan stationery products. Stationery is our starting point, but we are planning to eventually carry all sorts of modern, made-in-Japan items. Please read on to learn about the behind the scenes process of launching a side business in Japan.
The first thing we had to do was make sure our business would be legal. I learned that my ‘Specialist In Humanities/International Services’ visa does not technically allow one to run a side business without receiving the very long-winded ‘Permission to Engage in Activity other than that Permitted under the Status of Residence Previously Granted.’ My wife has a dependent visa and had already received this permission, so we decided the business would be hers on paper. As a dependent, she can receive a fixed amount of monthly income without needing to pay income taxes, so her income from the shop should be tax free until things really take off. Selling products to overseas customers also negates the need to charge consumption tax. If the business does start generating significant income, the next step would be to consider registering it as a sole proprietorship (個人事業) at our local tax office. We sought many opinions, including contacting JETRO, the Japan External Trade Organization, and the consensus was to just try things out for a while before going through the trouble of registering. he main benefit is being able to write off business expenses, which will not benefit us until the shop’s sales exceeds my wife’s income tax exemption.
Contacting Japanese stationery companies was quite an adventure. The emails that I sent (written in Japanese) were mostly ignored, but I generally received good service after following up on the phone. All the large companies I contacted said selling their products to overseas customers would come in conflict with their overseas subsidiaries. I tried to explain how I was only interested in their Japan-limited products, but unsurprising, the lowly customer service reps I spoke to didn’t have the power to change company policy.
The older, smaller companies were happy to sell product to us with few stipulations. The medium-sized companies were willing to work with us, bu
t some had a vetting process. A few wanted to see our website (I scrambled to create some mockups since it wasn’t ready at the time), and a couple that were in Kansai wanted to meet in person before we could do business. In the end, there were some disappointments, but we got enough of the brands we had wanted to come up with our starting product lineup.
We chose to use the popular website platform Weebly to create our shop. It offered most of the features we needed for the cheapest price. We’re also dabbling on the Amazon Sellers Market, but that’s mostly to get more exposure for our brand. There are other obvious options like eBay and Etsy, which we may pursue in the future.
No matter how you choose to sell, having decent product photographs is a must. Many of our brands, the ones with good photography, prohibit their retailers from using their photos. Knowing that I would have to photograph a substantial portion of our products, I just decided to do all of them for the sake of continuity. Taking suitable pictures required a halfway decent camera, a cheap, pop-up photo box, and some basic photo-editing skills. Overall, I’m happy with the results of my photos, but it took three to four times longer than I expected. If you put in enough time you could surprise yourself, but you might also do just as well to outsource this work.
Getting a web shop off the ground can actually be done fairly cheaply but will definitely be a huge investment in time. We already have a long list of stationery products we want to add and a lot of ideas about non-stationery products and where things will go next. For now, we need to get the word out, and we have mostly been working on getting some Facebook followers. I hope you check out our site and check back from time to time to see our blog, where I plan to write stories about life in Japan in addition to shop news.
WIT Life #282: あけおめことよろ！
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WIT Life is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends along with her own observations.
Happy New Year! The greeting in the title is an abbreviation of 「明けましておめでとうございます！今年もよろしくお願いします。」 (“Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu! Kotoshi mo yoroshiku onegai shimasu.”). We all know how much the Japanese love their abbreviations! I hope everyone had a fun and relaxing 年末年始 (nenmatsu nenshi, or year-end and new year), and are ready and refreshed for 2015. We are now in the year of the sheep, so for all of you with this animal sign this is your year.
The Abe administration is also hoping it is the year for women, coming off of his disastrous efforts in this arena last year with the resigning of two female ministers and general skepticism in regard to his Womenomics agenda. There was an interesting Read More
Justin’s Japan: Nippon in New York — Akira Toriyama Returns, Final Fantasy, Video Games Live
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Jaco the Galactic Patrolman, the latest manga from Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama, arrives Jan. 6. (VIZ Media)
By JQ magazine editor Justin Tedaldi (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02) for Examiner.com. Visit his Japanese culture page here for related stories.
Start 2015 off right by heading down to your local concert hall, consulate, or arts center for some fantastic new year’s fare. Whether you enjoy kendo, classic film, or orchestral performances from the greatest video games of all time, treat yourself and catch a break from the cold.
This month’s highlights include:
Tuesday, Jan. 6
$9.99 print/$6.99 digital
Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama is back with this quirky new interstellar comedy, collected in English for the first time! Retired scientist Omori lives alone on a deserted island while continuing his research into time travel. His quiet life is interrupted when galactic patrolman Jaco crash lands and decides to move in with him. This agent from space claims to be elite, but sometimes it can be a little hard to believe. Can Jaco get along with the old man long enough to save the earth from a dangerous threat?
Jan. 9-10, 7:30 p.m.
16th Contemporary Dance Showcase: Japan + East Asia
Japan Society, 333 East 47th Street
$28/$25 Japan Society members
This bi-annual favorite, hailed by the the New York Times as “a hot ticket,” returns with a standout line-up of groundbreaking artists from the other side of the globe. This year’s showcase includes from Japan: Nobuyuki Hanabusa’s group enra performing Newton, an out-of-this-world amalgamation of motion graphics and choreography; Mikiko Kawamura’s street style solo Alphard set to a bold soundscape with J-pop and classical music; and Kaori Seki’s quartet Marmont, in which bodies morph into nebulous creature-like positions. From Taiwan: I-Fen Tung’s fresh duo How to Say grapples with communication through words and dance and Shang-Chi Sun’s Traverse, in which graceful martial arts-like movements oscillate between combat speed and tranquility. The Friday, Jan. 9 performance is followed by a MetLife Meet-the-Artists Reception.
Jan. 13-Feb. 12
Views of Kendo: Photographs from Japan
Consulate General of Japan in New York, 299 Park Avenue, 18F
Free
A series of photographs taken on a recent trip to Japan for research by filmmaker Amy Guggenheim, who is currently working on When Night Turns to Day, a fictional story about kendo, the art of the Japanese sword, slated for production late 2015. Although competitive, the purpose of Kendo isn’t winning or losing, but bu, a state of (enlightened) mind. In a dramatic relationship, two people face each other sword to sword, up close and personal, both seemingly immovable. Through these photos—shot in November at the All Nippon Kendo Tournament in Tokyo—witness the exhilarating encounter of first-rate players that captures the spirit in motion as the match unfolds. A special benefit party for the making of the film will be held at the Kitano Hotel on Tuesday, Jan. 13 at 7:00 p.m. Click here for details.
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