For those not in the know, composer-pianist Satoko Fujii pays tribute to Orchestra Nagoya’s local music and art community on Korekara (releasing on October 2nd via Libra Records).

The fourth of her five new 2026 orchestral discs, this is yet another spectacular live recording by the Satoko Fujii Orchestra in Nagoya and is a bold and uncompromising Nagoya sound.

Celebrating the musicians and arts community that make the central Japanese city’s culture so special, Fujii composed the four-part suite to honor the 20th anniversary of the cafe Rojiura no Matahari, a gathering place for the city’s art lovers.

Perhaps that explains why the album is one of the most warm and joyful of her orchestral releases, with a heightened feeling of comradery and exploratory self-expression from all involved.

1. Korekara Part 1 [14:31]
2. Korekara Part 2 [13:59]
3. Korekara Part 3 [11:31]
4. Korekara Part 4 [21:31]

A virtuoso piano improviser, an original composer and a band-leader who gets the best collaborators to deliver, Satoko opens stridently jazzy, before leaning into a moodier stance, culminating in a frenetic grouping of musical minds on Korekara Part 1 and then we are gifted the opaque, at first, stoically charged before culminating in an argumentative free for all on Korekara Part 2, the opulent grandeur, latterly joyously jangly Korekara Part 3 is along next, the set rounding out on the confidently-nuanced, at first, subsequently mesmerizingly, jammed and upbeat Orleans’-hued twenty minute opus Korekara Part 4.

The album continues Fujii’s series of orchestra albums released in 2026 with the final release this year to be Satoko Fujii Orchestra Tokyo’s Kappa Ondo on November 6th, 2026.

www.satokofujii.com