EWING -- Five years ago this month, the Great East Japan earthquake shook the country's pacific coast, causing 133-foot tsunami waves and a slew of death and destruction.
Since that tragedy, The College of New Jersey's (TCNJ) chorus has performed at Lincoln Center's Frederick P. Rose Hall alongside The Philharmonia Orchestra of New York (PONY), as well as students from five schools in Japan who endured the disaster.
Today, March 29, in the program's fifth year, TCNJ singers will take the stage to benefit survivors once again in the largest performance ever played at Lincoln Center.
Maestro Atsushi Yamada instructing chorus.
"It's exciting every year," John Leonard, TCNJ's chair of the Music Department and Director of Choral Activities, said.
Leonard said this year about 90 of his students will join 130 Japanese teenagers to sing Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2. Both groups will sing in German while accompanied by the PONY, featuring more than 80 professional New York City musicians.
"My students, this isn't just a hobby for them," Leonard said. "This is an integral part of who they are."
Leonard said this concert will host the most musicians and singers ever to perform on stage at Lincoln Center.
He said the concert was formed five years ago by the PONY and their partnership with Project Hand in Hand, an organization that helps Japan's natural disaster survivors. TCNJ has performed with the PONY four of those years.
"I never had the chance to collaborate with people outside the country in this way," Junior Steve Mejias, a singer in the TCNJ chorus, said.
Mejias said he is a music education major, voice minor and has played the viola in the Philadelphia Orchestra's holiday show. The Lincoln Center concert will be the first large-scale show he will sing in.
Leonard said TCNJ students who were chosen - both in and outside of the music department - have practiced about four hours a week since the beginning of the semester under the direction of himself and PONY Music Director and Maestro Atsushi Yamada, who came to the college.
Mejias said he enjoyed working with Yamada, who is "fun and energetic."
"He brings an entirely different viewpoint," Mejias said. "(He taught me) there's no such thing as quiet enough."
Mejias explained there is a part in the song that chorus members must come in softly.
"He never found what we did good enough at first," Mejias said. "He kept saying 'quieter, quieter.' I was like 'how much quieter does he want?'"
Leonard said students practiced at TCNJ with Yamada and the Japanese singers on Monday, March 28.
Leonard said this year was the first he was able to travel to Japan to meet the students he is working with before they came to TCNJ.
"They just astound me these young musicians from Japan," Leonard said. "They're teenagers with the resiliency that life goes on. They had to pick their lives up (after the earthquake) and move on."
Leonard said the performance the PONY, TCNJ and the Japanese students will play together - Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2 - is better known as the Resurrection Symphony.
"It's the resurrection symphony so it's very fitting," Leonard said. "Not only in the sound but the emotional sense of (the piece)."
Original film with "striking images" will be displayed behind the symphony, the PONY said in a press release.
"We're breaking classical music taboos and bringing innovations from the world of film and popular music to add excitement, while staying true to the integrity of the music with exceptional playing by some of the world's finest musicians," Yamada said in a statement.
Leonard said TCNJ faculty member Uli Speth, from the college's music department, is a violinist for the PONY too, so she will perform as well.
He said he hopes his students will gain from this concert, not only a sense of music professionalism, but a sense of unity and compassion for people of different nationalities undergoing tragedy.
"I hope they have a bigger picture for the rest of the world," Leonard said. "We have a lot in common. (I want them) to see love, compassion. I hope that it breaks down some of those political walls."
The Japanese students and the PONY will also play a tribute to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks during a performance the following day, March 30 at 7:30 p.m.
Lindsay Rittenhouse may be reached at lrittenhouse@njadvancemedia.com. Find NJ.com on Facebook.