Japanese Conductor Seiji Ozawa, Iconic Leader of Boston Symphony Orchestra, Passes Away at 88

In Japan, Ozawa’s father was a native dentist who – as the story goes – hauled a piano 25 miles in a wagon so that his son would have an instrument to play. But as a teenager, Ozawa sprained his finger while playing rugby, so he turned to operations. In 1959, he won top prize at the International Competition of Orchestra Conductors in Besançon, France, which attracted the attention of then BSO music director Charles Munch. Later, Ozawa was hired by the New York Philharmonic by Leonard Bernstein when he showed interest. Following assignments in Toronto, San Francisco, and Japan, Ozawa was appointed music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. For 29 years, he remained there.

Ozawa conducted the symphony largely from memory. He did not always use the baton and his body swayed on the podium.
“What a dancer he was!” says longtime BSO trombonist Norman Bolter. He played music just a few feet away from Ozawa from 1975 to 2002 – almost the entire period of Ozawa’s time with the orchestra.
Bolter recalls, “But not just a dancer getting in there and doing his jig.” “His clarity of movement was extraordinary, but it was not so convincing, trying to be neat. There was a fluidity to it, there was a ballet aspect to it, and it was lively.”

Ozawa was fun too. In 1988, he led the all-animal orchestra on “Sesame Street,” and in 1963 he appeared on the TV show “What’s My Line?” Was a guest.
Bolter says that Ozawa had a strong hold on some composersBolter says, “In my mind, Seiji did Bartok like no one else did. I mean he just had this unbridled enthusiasm that would overwhelm him with Bartok and some of the other pieces.” “He let the orchestra play; he wasn’t a control freak like that.”

However, in the mid-1990s, a string of disputed personnel choices infuriated veteran BSO executives and musicians, resulting in resignations, negative publicity, and a sharp drop in morale.

Nevertheless, Pfeiffer says that Ozawa changed the face of the orchestra and was something of a musical ambassador. He took the BSO to China, making it the first American cultural organization to do so after relations with the country were normalized. At Tanglewood, the BSO’s summer home, a new hall was named after Ozawa in 1994.

Ozawa never forgot his home country of Japan while he was living in Boston. It was there that he established the Saito Kinen Music Festival seven years later and the Saito Kinen Orchestra in 1984.
In November, 2022, the 87-year-old conductor led the orchestra from a wheelchair in Beethoven’s Egmont Overture, the first time a live symphonic performance was broadcast to the International Space Station.

In 2002, Ozawa quit the BSO to become the conductor of the Vienna State Opera.
But fans can still hear the maestro in Boston — not on the podium, but in Fenway Park, cheering on their favorite baseball team.