Landmark & Tower · Ueno Park

Sogakudo Concert Hall of the Former Tokyo Music School 旧東京音楽学校奏楽堂

Japan's oldest Western-style concert hall, an 1890 wooden building in Ueno Park where composer Taki Rentaro performed, with a restored hall and pipe organ you can visit for a few hundred yen.

About

The Sogakudo was built in 1890 as the auditorium of the Tokyo Music School, forerunner of today's Tokyo University of the Arts, and is Japan's oldest surviving Western-style concert hall. Its pale green clapboard exterior hides a wooden, vaulted hall designed for music. Taki Rentaro, composer of the much-loved 'Kojo no Tsuki', and opera singer Miura Tamaki studied and performed here. The hall was moved to its current spot in Ueno Park in 1987 and became an Important Cultural Property; after a renovation it reopened in 2018. You can wander through the exhibits on the music school's history, see the second-floor hall with its vaulted ceiling and the English-built pipe organ, and on some days catch inexpensive concerts by university students.

Highlights

• Japan's oldest Western-style concert hall (1890)
• Vaulted wooden auditorium with a historic pipe organ
• Where Taki Rentaro, composer of Kojo no Tsuki, performed
• Pastel clapboard Meiji exterior in Ueno Park
• Small exhibits on the history of Western music in Japan

Tips

• Open to visitors mainly on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Sundays; on other days it may be booked for events.
• Look out for weekend concerts, often cheap and held in the historic hall.
• It sits right next to the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum and is a 5-minute walk from Tokyo National Museum.

Open in Google Maps · Info checked 2026-10-09

Nearby

• Former Hakubutsukan-Dobutsuen StationPhoto Spot · 70 m away
• Tokyo Metropolitan Art MuseumMuseum · 120 m away
• Ueno ZooZoo & Aquarium · 290 m away
• Ueno Toshogu Peony GardenGarden · 300 m away
• Tokyo National MuseumMuseum · 300 m away
• National Museum of Nature and ScienceMuseum · 330 m away
• Ueno ParkPark · 350 m away
• National Museum of Western ArtMuseum · 360 m away