Before the Music
The Face of Jizo began not with sound, but with place.
Before writing the score, Masashi Hasegawa traveled to Hiroshima in June 2024 and spent time with the city’s memory—its atmosphere, its documents, and the quiet weight that remains in the landscape.
That encounter became the starting point for the music.
Hiroshima, June 2024
The visit was not research in a distant sense. It was a way of listening.
Standing before the Atomic Bomb Dome and moving through materials connected to the history of the city, Masashi began to understand the emotional scale that the music would need to hold.
The composition grew from that experience.
From Place to Sound
The score was written for a work set in Hiroshima after the atomic bombing, where memory, grief, and human connection remain at the center of the story.
Rather than illustrating events from the outside, the music was shaped to stay close to the inner life of the piece—its silence, its tenderness, and the fragile movement between the living and the remembered.
The Work
The Face of Jizo was presented in New York in August 2024.
The music was created as part of a larger theatrical work, supporting the story not as ornament, but as another layer of presence.
The aim was not to explain the subject, but to remain beside it.