Composer Akira Senjyu and violinist Mariko Senjyu appeared on Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's long-running talk show "Tetsuko's Room" (TV Asahi) broadcast on March 12th. They spoke about their feelings for their mother, Fumiko, who passed away 12 years ago at the age of 87.
All three siblings in the Senju family are artists, with the eldest, Hiroshi, a Japanese painter. As children, his brothers learned the violin first, while Mariko started playing when she was two and a half years old. Following Mariko's professional debut at the age of 12, Akira became a composer.
"It was a sudden thing for us when our mother passed away. (Fumiko) had stage four cancer. My mother herself said, 'That can't be,' and it was a huge shock to us. Until the very end, my mother kept saying, 'You guys aren't done yet. You're not done yet,'" Mariko recalled.
Fumiko was researching medicine before she got married. Mariko said, "Even though she was doing things that had nothing to do with music, my mother always had the right things to say. For example, when she came to listen to my concerts, she never praised me, but she would say, 'That was bad,' and point out the wrong parts appropriately. It was all about sensitivity. My three siblings and I thought my mother was very sensitive and delicate, and extremely sensitive. I had always wanted her criticism, so it was a great pity to lose it."
Akira has been helping Fumiko since he was a child. "Because I was allowed to do that, I learned the joy of making things," Akira says. Even now, he sometimes makes "the dishes of his mother, Fumiko," which Mariko loved, for Mariko. Mariko revealed, "I especially like fried chicken. When I feel like eating it, Akira sometimes makes it for me."
For Fumiko's funeral, the siblings worked together to write songs. Akira recalled, "We decided to have a musical funeral. Mariko was going to record the next day, so she told me to write the song in one day. Hiroshi said he would draw the jacket, but he brought something he had drawn in the past (laughs). We recorded the songs, made it a musical funeral, and distributed them to everyone who came."
