The Sacred Banquet

Kannazuki is a traditional name for the tenth month of the traditional Japanese calendar. The name literally means "the month without gods". In the Shinto tradition it was said that the eight million gods of Japan leave their shrines and congregated annually at Izumo Taisha in Shimane Prefecture to have meetings for several weeks. They discuss such things as the match-making, harvest and sake brewing for the upcoming year.
The composer write this piece with freely expanding his imagination: Unique gods from all over the country come together at the same time, talk about what kind of excitement, what kind of discussion and bargaining to decide the fate of the next year's humanity. Playing with a variety of ideas, such as rhythmic and dynamic scenes, warmly lyrical or tense scenes, and performing with a focus on tone and expressive contrast, and give give a deep and rich performance.
Although the score may look complicated at first glance, brass ranges, woodwind technique, percussion changes are taken into consideration such that a junior high or high school band of around 20 people can do an effective performance. If you have a pianist, the bass voice can be enriched, but if you don't, one player can cover the piano solo in measures 57-62 with a piano solo. If you have more than three trumpet players, play divisi for a stronger sound.