“With me, he tried to be a good husband as well as a good composer.”
— Hinako Fujihara Hovhaness
There are love stories we watch unfold in movies. The soldier returns. The music plays—“Love Lifts Us Where We Belong.” The kiss is cinematic. The moment is unforgettable.
There are also love stories we scroll past on social media—
Instagramable weddings, matching pajamas on Christmas, Valentine’s roses, sun-drenched proposals in Paris, couples kissing on beach vacations.
But this story is different.
It doesn’t live in grand gestures. It lives in the intimate, everyday moments.
It is not the story of a moment, but the story of a life together—a deep, lasting love.
However, this memoir is more than a composer’s love story.
It is more than a tribute to a composer— In these pages, we meet Hinako Fujihara Hovhaness herself.
A celebrated Japanese soprano. A storyteller.A woman whose love story transcends the pages of this book.
We see who she is—on her own terms.
It’s not a biography built from accolades.
It’s the quiet remembrance of a husband through shared breakfasts, quiet travels, and small, intimate moments no one else saw.
A story that lingered in the music—and stayed after the music was gone.
Their story wasn’t loud.
It lived in the same breakfast he insisted on eating each morning.
The old cap he wore, even after the cat chewed holes in it.
The laugh they shared when a concert program accidentally printed “Sea of Unco” instead of “Sea of Unconsciousness.”
It was a love written not in headlines, but in memory.
A Memoir Written in Grief and Devotion
After Alan’s passing in 2000, Hinako did not retreat into silence.
She began to write—not a formal biography, but a deeply personal diary of sorts.
A record of their life together.
Stories he had told her.
Her memories of their time—and a space where she could hold on to what she feared time would take away.
This memoir of a composer’s wife became her way of remembering.
But it also became something more—a way for Hinako to be seen not just as the partner of a great composer, but as a woman with her own memories, voice, and grief.
In writing it, she wasn’t only honoring Alan—she was revealing herself.
She wrote the things she could not say:
The small routines, the heartbreak, the humor, the ache of grief, and the stillness left behind.
Some stories she chose to share.
Others remain tucked between the lines—left for readers to discover in time.
The book is not polished.
Through her memoir, we see that he wasn’t perfect.
And neither was she.
But that’s what makes it unforgettable.
It’s real.
It’s human.
It holds the messiness of love, grief, and memory.
It wasn’t written to impress fans of his work or to highlight only the good.
It was written to remember to honor the real love between them, not to make it perfect.
A Final Wish from a Wife/Mother Who Remembered Everything
Completing the book was Hinako’s final wish.
Though she passed away in 2022 before it could be published, she left behind something that will last:
A promise to remember.
A manuscript full of love.
Her son, Bill, now carries that promise forward.
This memoir is a tribute—not only to Alan Hovhaness, one of the 20th century’s most spiritually inspired composers—but to a kind of partnership that rarely makes headlines.
It’s about what happens when the music stops and someone keeps listening.
Still loving.
Still writing.
Not only for Hinako, but for Bill as well.
This memoir, which shares an intimate and enduring story of love and legacy, is set to release this year.
