My 35 Years at Session House

Michitaka Ueda (上田道崇; sound and equipment management)

 

 

Time passes so quickly that I find myself thinking, “Has it really been that long!?” The other day, when I repainted the walls of the second-floor gallery, I worked while letting my thoughts wander over many things. I remember that when the late Katsumi Kawasaki (川崎克己), my mentor and one of Session House’s founding members, first brought me here, the building was still very new.

 

Many years have passed since then. These days, seeing the senior colleagues who supported Session House retire one after another makes me feel that sense of responsibility all the more keenly.

 

Times have changed and technology has evolved—from analog to digital, and now into a wholly unknown world called AI. Amid this, people’s creativity and values have also changed in diverse ways. How will the times change from here? What waves will come, how will we face them, and how can we communicate this to the next generation and help them notice things? I am repeating trial and error every day, hoping that this in turn will allow us to create new waves.

 

If I could, even now I would like to ask those senior colleagues every last detail about how each got through their era. Unfortunately, they have retired from the human world too, so I cannot fulfill that wish. Well, I can imagine them probably saying, “What you’re doing is the answer!” and myself wondering, bewildered, “What does that mean...?” I hope to keep offering my modest support so that this enduring place of expression, Session House, can be maintained to its 40th and 50th years.