All-Japan Band Association - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The All Japan Band Association (AJBA) is an organization that exists solely for the purpose of facilitating an enormous annual music competition among Japanese wind bands. This competition has largely promoted the concert band

Concert band

A concert band, also called wind band, symphonic band, symphonic winds, wind orchestra, wind symphony, wind ensemble, or symphonic wind ensemble, is a performing ensemble consisting of several members of the woodwind instrument family, brass instrument family, and percussion instrument family.A...

idiom (called buraban

Buraban

Buraban is a popular Japanese slang term for wind ensemble or concert band. Historically, the term is derived from the English "brass band", which is pronounced "burasubando" in Japanese...

in Japanese), but in recent years AJBA has also included separate entries for marching band

Marching band

Marching band is a physical activity in which a group of instrumental musicians generally perform outdoors and incorporate some type of marching with their musical performance. Instrumentation typically includes brass, woodwinds, and percussion instruments...

and smaller chamber music

Chamber music

Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...

ensembles within its national competition.

The AJBA competition includes categories for elementary school, middle school, high school, university, company, and community bands. It is an extremely competitive three-tiered contest, with local, regional, and national levels of competition. In some categories - middle school for example - the school band

School band

A school band is a group of student musicians who rehearse and perform instrumental music together. A concert band is usually under the direction of one or more conductors...

s from the most competitive urban districts that manage to reach the national level of competition are statistically among the top 0.5% in all of Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

.

The renowned Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra

Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra

The is a professional concert band that has long been regarded as one of the world's finest, perhaps rivaled only in recent years by the Dallas Wind Symphony ....

is usually hired to make the definitive premier recordings of the required pieces commissioned each year for AJBA's enormous national competition. The final (national) stage of the competition is regularly held in Fumon Hall, an enormous auditorium located on the campus of the Rissho Kosei Kai

Rissho Kosei Kai

is a Japanese Buddhist lay movement founded in 1938 by Nikkyo Niwano and Myoko Naganuma.-History:Rissho Kosei-kai was founded on March 5, 1938 by Nikkyo Niwano and Myoko Naganuma, both former members of the Buddhist sect Reiyūkai. Rev. Niwano met Ms. Naganuma while he was engaged in missionary work...

religious organization in central Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

World's Largest Music Contest

The All Japan Band Association annual contest appears to be the world's largest music competition in terms of the number of active contestant

Contestant

A contestant is someone who takes part in a competition, usually a professional competition or a game show on television. The participants competing against each other have to go through rounds...

s, with approximately 800,000 competing musicians in more than 14,000 bands. The other largest music competitions

Music competitions

A music competition is a public event designed to identify and award outstanding musical ensembles and/or soloists. Pop music competitions are music competitions which are held to find pop starlets...

in the world are the Eurovision and American Idol

American Idol

American Idol, titled American Idol: The Search for a Superstar for the first season, is a reality television singing competition created by Simon Fuller and produced by FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment...

competitions in the field of pop music singing. While these do not exceed the AJBA competition in terms of the number of competitors, they may be larger in terms of the number of individual entrants, operating budgets, or fans (as these contests involve popular music, are marketed internationally, and enjoy a much higher global profile).

AJBA Contest Divisions

The following chart displays a breakdown of competing wind bands in terms of region and category:

1 October 2007 statistics

Divisions	Grade School	Junior High School	High School	College/University	Company	Community	Total by Region
Hokkaido	117	373	226	24	7	115	862
Tohoku	256	742	397	34	12	194	1,635
E.Kanto	221	1,026	525	29	12	227	2,040
W.Kanto	45	775	336	27	5	149	1,337
Tokyo	34	583	274	29	14	113	1,047
Hokuriku	23	210	119	16	2	69	439
Tokai	96	846	502	27	13	188	1,672
Kansai	62	934	531	47	11	337	1,925
Chukoku	76	538	295	39	6	111	1,065
Shikoku	17	254	126	10	2	54	463
Kyushu	132	774	450	44	14	222	1,636
National Totals	1,079	7,058	3,781	326	98	1,779	14,121

Since the average Japanese wind band has around 45 to 55 members, the total national figure probably exceeds 800,000 contestants on any given year, and according to the most recent figures (2007–2008) may even exceed 1 million.

World's Largest Music Contest

AJBA Contest Divisions

See also

Further reading