Music, Shared Histories, and Futures in Toyama City, Japan: Owara Kaze no Bon and Celebrating a New Tram Connection in the Early Pandemic

Abstract

Abstract The full impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on musical life are not yet understood. This article draws on eleven years of contact with Toyama City, culminating in eight months of in-person fieldwork beginning in August 2019, and subsequent analysis of online materials. I discuss Covid-19’s interruptions to local music festivals and the social implications of these interruptions. I argue that responses to the pandemic exemplified by these festivals reveal ongoing divisions between Toyama City's older and younger and rural and urban residents. This article contributes to emergent ethnomusicological literature considering the pandemic's varying local expressions.