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Seiji Ozawa
Principal conductor of the Vienna State Opera since the 2002/2003 season |
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Seiji Ozawa was born to Japanese parents in Shenyang, Manchuria (China). In 1953, he entered the Tokyo Toho Gakuen School of Music, where he studied first piano, then conducting (with his mentor Hideo Saito) and composition. After several engagements in Japan, he continued his studies in Europe, winning first prize at the Besançon conducting competition; this in turn won him an invitation to attend the Tanglewood Music Center. In 1960 he won the Sergei Koussevitzky Prize. He was assistant conductor to Herbert von Karajan and Leonard Bernstein, held leading positions in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Ravinia Festival, with the Toronto Symphony and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. In 1964 he conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra for the first time and was subsequently their music director from 1973 to 2002. He now works with all the world's famous orchestras, and conducted the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s New Year’s Day Concert for the first time on 1 January 2002. He has been a guest conductor at the Met (EUGENE ONEGIN), La Scala in Milan (TOSCA, LA DAMNATION DE FAUST, PIQUE DAME), the Opéra National de Paris (1983 world première of ST. FRANÇOIS D'ASSISE, TURANDOT, DIALOGUES DES CARMÉLITES, FALSTAFF, FIDELIO), Covent Garden Opera London, and at the Salzburg Festival (COSÌ FAN TUTTE, IDOMENEO). In 1984 he established the Saito Kinen Orchestra and in 1992 the Saito Kinen Festival in Matsumoto in memory of his teacher. He made his debut at the Vienna State Opera with EUGENE ONEGIN in May 1998. He subsequently conducted FALSTAFF, PIQUE DAME, ERNANI and JENUFA there. He has been music director of the Vienna State Opera since the 2002/03 season. Since then, he has conducted the premières of JONNY SPIELT AUF, DER FLIEGENDE HOLLÄNDER and MANON LESCAUT, revivals of Mozart’s three da Ponte operas as well as FIDELIO and WOZZECK; he has also conducted concerts of Berlioz's GRANDE MESSE DES MORTS and Britten’s WAR REQUIEM, as well as standard repertoire productions such as SALOME, TOSCA and ELEKTRA at the opera house on Vienna’s Ringstrasse. In autumn 2004, he conducted DON GIOVANNI and LE NOZZE DI FIGARO during the Vienna State Opera’s sixth guest performance in Tokyo, Japan. Seiji Ozawa holds several honorary doctorates and has won international awards, such as the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art First Class.
In the 2005/06 season he will be conducting in the FESTIVAL CONCERT “50 Years Since Reopening” on 5 November and WOZZECK.
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