While judging ensemble contest in recent years I noticed many clarinet players wearing hair buns. When all eight high school students appeared on stage with a chignon hair-do playing my Pater Noster, I forgot about the contest for a moment! So I came up with the idea of writing a clarinet work with the title Chignon. Haruhiko Okamatsu, president of the Kochi Clarinet Society who I met when I visited Kochi Prefecture, had the strong desire to present a great clarinet ensemble work from the region. Think of "chignon" as a metaphor. You don
