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On February 3, 2009, a television advertisement for Newtype Magazine’s March issue revealed that The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya would be making its way back to the small screen in April. As news about the rebroadcast trickled out over the next several days, something unexpected was announced. On February 14th, the series’ official webpage, haruhi.tv, announced “Haruhi Suzumiya’s String Concert.” The music would be played by the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, and feature appearances from Aya Hirano and Minori Chihara, the voices of Haruhi and Yuki respectively. The concert would feature two more voice actors as MCs, Minoru Shiraishi, the voice of Taniguchi, and Megumi Matsumoto, the voice of Kunikida. It was scheduled to take place on April 29th, at the Tokyo Welfare Pension Hall in Shinjuku. After this announcement, no further details were revealed. So people who couldn’t attend the event would just have to wait until it was finished to learn about the details.

The concert would end up being a classical interpretation of various themes and background music from the anime, arranged, and performed, by the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. They were able to turn short, background, tracks into larger classical pieces by merging them together. For example, the fourth song they performed took parts from The Heroine of Tragedy, Invitation to the Extraordinary, and Beach Vacation.

As for the concert itself, after the orchestra was seated and its conductor, Philip Chu, was getting ready to kick things off he was interrupted by a wizard. After appearing to have had a spell cast upon him, Philip Chu was given the wand and used it to conduct the orchestra. The concert began with Mikuru Legend of Love, the opening theme of episode 00. After the first song was finished, the crowd was introduced to the concert's two MCs, and Satoru Kōsaki*, the series’ primary composer. Aya Hirano wouldn’t make her appearance until about midway through, at song number six. After her introduction, she would sing the series’ opening theme, “It's an Adventure, Right? (Bōken Desho Desho?).” Aya Hirano would return to the stage later in the show to lend her voice to “Lost My Music.” Two songs later, Minori Chihara lent her voice to “Snow, Silence, By the Window (Yuki, Muon, Madobe Nite),” one of Yuki’s character songs. There was also a short segment in-between songs where Philip Chu guided Minori Chihara across the stage. The concert concluded with "Hare Hare Yukai" and "God knows…” with Aya Hirano providing vocals for the latter.

In total, the concert featured 15 classically arranged songs that had a total length of about one hour and 19 minutes. A CD featuring all 15 tracks would be released shortly after the concert, on June 24, 2009. However, if you didn’t get a chance to attend the concert in person, it would be a while before you’d be able to see it. Since they didn’t do any encore performances, all fans could do was hope for an eventual DVD release. That would come the following year, on February 26, 2010. The DVD not only included footage of all 15 songs being performed live, but it also featured a behind the scenes look at practice for the concert. The concert was re-released for the final time on November 26, 2010, as a special disc in the series’ blu-ray release, but there was no bonus footage included.

Haruhi Suzumiya’s String Concert, also known as “The String Performance of Haruhi Suzumiya,” or “The Symphony of Haruhi Suzumiya,” is an interesting footnote in the series’ history. One that, due to its limited releases and the time that’s past, is easily overlooked. But, for many people that’ve taken the time to listen to these classical arrangements, it won’t be so easily forgotten.