Handel’s Messiah in post-WWII Japan marked a surprising and moving performance in Tokyo for Christmas 1945
Led by Ugo Nakada, many Japanese and Americans gathered at two sites to hear it and rejoice.
His daughter, June, played the piano.
The performers?
A choir of 250 American soldiers and Japanese college students.
The man responsible for that performance was Ugo Nakada.
Who was Ugo Nakada?
The only son of Juji Nakada and the oldest of his five children, Ugo was born in Japan in 1896.
He grew up on the Oriental Missionary Society (OMS) compound near Tokyo, and spoke excellent English.
Ugo’s mother, Katsuko, died when he was thirteen. His piano teacher recognized his musical gifts and encouraged him to pursue them.
In 1923, Evangelist Billy Sunday’s song leader Homer Rodeheaver, visited Japan where Ugo served as his translator. Rodeheaver suggested Ugo enroll in a Chicago music college.
Ugo moved to the United States to study and eventually graduate from the Curtis Institute of Music. (He later studied at the Westminster Choir College under Dr. John F. Williamson, in New Jersey.)
While there, he and his visiting father attended a concert where they heard Handel’s Messiah for the first time.
As Ugo’s daughter, June, recounted:
My father and grandfather were sitting together at a concert at Moody Institute [Juji was a former student]. . . . As the Messiah concert goes on, there’s a section in which the alto soloist sings ‘he was despised. You reject the head.”
When that solo came up, my dad . . . saw my grandfather shedding tears. He said it was the first and last time he ever saw his father shed tears. It made a great impression on him. He vowed he would bring The Messiah to Japan.
June Nakada Sumida, personal interview, December 2024.
Handel’s Messiah in Japan
When he returned to Japan in the 1930s, Ugo became a member of Tokyo Union Church. As choir director, he introduced his choir to The Messiah about that time.
As A Church for All Seasons observed, “the most memorable performance, post-WWII, was The Messiah directed by Ugo Nakada.”
Once the war ended, American Army chaplains asked Ugo Nakada to direct a choir that Christmas. They asked him to bring his 85-member choir.
As June remembers,
In 1945 when the war ended, the chaplains insisted there needed to be a Messiah concert. My dad said, [looking at his church choir], ‘I can organize these women, but the men have been at war. Many died.
“And then the chaplain says, ‘Oh, the chaplains at the GI school can provide the men.”
Ugo asked a pertinent question. “We’ve been enemies.”
The chaplains shook their heads. “The Christian faith is above all kinds of world conflicts. You know, the GIs will probably be perfectly happy to come out and sing with you.”
June Sumida; personal conversation, December 2024
Japanese Singers
Some Japanese singers were thrilled.
“In the fall of 1946, my friends and I saw a notice on the school bulletin board. [They] were recruiting female voices for a United States/Japanese combined chorus that would sing the Messiah at Christmas.
His goal was to build goodwill between the victor and the vanquished. . . A few of my classmates and I decided this was a golden opportunity to practice English with native speakers. We signed up.
Under the baton of Reverend Nakada, we met at Tokyo University every week for practice. It was a large chorus of 250 American GIs and Japanese college students.
Faith Nobuko Araki Barcus: Meguriai: Nobuko’s American Journey
University girls and American soldiers?
What do you think happened?
They had a wonderful time.
“Once the GIs discovered that they could communicate with us in English, they would spontaneously strike up a conversation. Something Japanese men did not do. They were very friendly and curious, and they smiled a lot.
“The concert was a great success.
Faith Nobuko Araki Barcus: Meguriai: Nobuko’s American Journey
In Barcus’ case, the concert and a subsequent Christmas party changed her life. (She was an alto in the choir; the man she married was a bass.)
The Messiah in Japan: Christmas 1945
The combined choirs performed The Messiah three times in 1945, plus on the radio.
Several days before the actual concert, they broadcast throughout Japan from Tokyo University’s auditorium on the radio station WVTR. The Japan Philharmonic Orchestra accompanied them.
They sang on December 22nd and 23rd at the same auditorium.
On Christmas Day, they sang at the Tokyo Hibiya-Park Public Hall.
All four performances were a great success.
The seventeen-year-old Miss June Nakada (Sumida in the future) accompanied the solo recitatives on the piano.
No surprise. June told me she listens to The Messiah every year.
As do I. I’m listening to it here, right now: Handel Messiah, Academy of Ancient Music Choir of The Queen’s College, Oxford.
Merry Christmas.
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