Hiroshima’s Senda Elementary School created a CD last December of the school’s Panflute and Chorus Club playing three songs on panflutes made from a kaizuka-ibuki hibakujomoku that had grown on the school’s grounds. The recordings are from a moving performance students gave when Tomoko-san visited the school. The songs are “Amazing Grace,” “Aogiri no Uta 2016,” and “Sore Ike Carp!” Both the Carp, Hiroshima’s baseball team, and the hibakujumoku are seen as symbols of Hiroshima’s recovery, so it’s only natural to put them together in song. Please listen to the pieces embedded below.
The instruments were crafted by a professional panflute maker after the school’s kaizuka-ibuki tree died. The tree’s branches were carved to the appropriate sizes and hollowed, then tied together to complete the flutes.
According to its website, Senda Elementary School was mostly destroyed during the atomic bombing, but now the school houses 18 hibakujumoku, some of which have been moved from other locations. Aside from the late kaizuka-ibuki tree, the grounds hold camphor, wisteria, juniper, pine, and maidenhair hibakujumoku, among others.
