Michio Kitazume (b. 1948), who studied at the Conservatoire de Paris after completing his graduate studies at Tokyo University of the Arts, is a composer of relatively few works. However, most of his compositions have been fortunate enough to receive repeat performances, leading him to often be described as a "high-batting-average composer." His works are characterized by subtle timbral changes and three-dimensional sound structures, which are particularly evident in his orchestral compositions. Various Distances II was composed in the year following the orchestral work of the same name, Various Distances (2005), commissioned by the 6th Hamamatsu International Piano Competition, and premiered as a compulsory piece for the competition's second preliminary round. As the title suggests, the work was composed with the awareness of "music as an expression possessing various kinds of distances." Here, not only intervals, which are distances between pitches, but also dynamics and even reverberation are perceived as senses of distance. For example, there is the sense of distance between a note struck while holding the sostenuto pedal and the resulting reverberation. Also, the sense of distance created by repeating the same note with varying dynamics. By applying the spatial concept of distance to music, which is a temporal art, a rich spatiotemporal realm is fostered.