Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa, who wowed audiences with the fluidity of his performances during three decades as leader of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, has died at age 88, his agency said Friday.
The maestro died of heart failure on Tuesday at his home in Tokyo, his agency Veroza Japan reported, according to the Associated Press (AP).
The world-famous, silver-haired Seiji Ozawa led the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1973 to 2002, longer than any other conductor in the orchestra’s history.
From 2002 to 2010, Ozawa was music director of the Vienna State Opera.
The maestro has remained active in recent years, mainly in his homeland, as artistic director and founder of the Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival, a music and opera event, in Japan.
With the Saito Kinen Orchestra, which he co-founded in 1984, he won a Grammy for best operatic recording in 2016 for Ravel’s L’Enfant et Les Sortileges (The Child and the Spells).
In 2022, he hosted the Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival for the first time in three years, celebrating his 30th anniversary, and this turned out to be his last public appearance.
Ozawa was born on September 1, 1935, to Japanese parents in Manchuria, China, while it was under Japanese occupation.
After his family returned to Japan in 1944, Ozawa studied music with Hideo Saito, a cellist and conductor responsible for popularizing Western music in Japan.
Ozawa first came to the United States in 1960 and was quickly recognized by critics as a brilliant young talent.
He led several ensembles, including the San Francisco Orchestra and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, before joining Boston in 1970.
Ozawa received two Emmy Awards for his television work with the Boston Symphony Orchestra: the first in 1976 for “An Evening at the Symphony” and the second in 1994 for Individual Achievement in Cultural Programming for “Dvorak in Prague: A Celebration.”
The maestro received honorary Doctor of Music degrees from the University of Massachusetts, the New England Conservatory of Music, and Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts.
He was one of five honored at the Kennedy Center’s annual awards ceremony in 2015 for contributions to American culture through the arts.
Over the years, his health deteriorated and he canceled some appearances in 2015 and 2016.
Messages of condolence poured in from all over the world, including from orchestras in Vienna and Berlin, musicians and residents of Matsumoto.
“The Boston Symphony Orchestra remembers Maestro Ozawa not only as a legendary conductor, but also as a passionate mentor to future generations of musicians who generously donated his time to education and master classes,” the orchestra said in a statement.
Japanese conductor Yutaka Sado, who studied with Ozawa and Leonard Bernstein and is now music director of the Tokyo New Japan Philharmonic, founded by Ozawa, told public television NHK that Ozawa inspired him to become a conductor. “I continued to follow in his footsteps, but I never managed to reach him, no matter how hard I tried,” he noted.
Ozawa’s agency said only close family members attended his funeral, respecting the family’s request for a peaceful farewell.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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