« Teaching is like a drug ! Once you have started it, you cannot give it up anymore. It gives me great joy to work with young musicians at the highest level. »

Biography

Born in China to Japanese parents, Seiji Ozawa began studying Western music at an early age. In 1959, he was awarded first prize in the Besançon International Competition for Young Conductors, thus making a name for himself. The following year, Charles Münch invited him to direct the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the Tanglewood Music Festival. He further honed his skills with Herbert von Karajan and with Leonard Bernstein, who invited Ozawa to accompany him on a tour of Japan with the New York Philharmonic.

Between 1965 and 1969, Ozawa was musical director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, before moving in 1970 to the same position at the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, where he stayed until 1976. He then made his mark on the Boston Symphony Orchestra, directing the ensemble until 2001. Since 2002, Seiji Ozawa has been musical director of the Vienna State Opera.

Seiji Ozawa, however, has never lost sight of his heritage. In 1984, as a tribute to his teacher Hideo Saito, he founded the Saito Kinen Orchestra, which, each summer in Japan, brings together Japanese musicians from the most prestigious Western orchestras.

In 1992, the orchestra inaugurated the Saito Kinen Festival, which has been held in the town of Matsumoto ever since. Furthermore, twice a year, Ozawa conducts the Mito Chamber Orchestra, created in 1990 and comprising some 30 top-class instrumentalists.
Feeling most concerned by the young artists musical education, Seiji Ozawa founds, in 2000, the “Ongaku-Juku” Academy, in Japan, and, in 2004 the International Music Academy – Switzerland (IMAS), in Geneva.

Much solicited throughout the world, Seiji Ozawa shares his wealth of talent with audiences in musical hubs such as Vienna, Berlin, Paris and New York. Among the great conductors of the past century, there are few who, like Ozawa, have reached the kind of legendary status that makes every one of his performances an event.