Tatsuno lies in western Hyōgo, an old castle town on the Ibo river known for soy-sauce brewing and for the poet Miki Rofū, whose lines gave Japan one of its best-loved songs. The city's cultural hall is a municipal building of a kind found across the country: a proscenium auditorium available to the town for recitals, school and civic occasions, and the visits of touring orchestras that bring Western symphonic repertoire to provincial audiences.