Seiji Ozawa, the Japanese conductor who amazed audiences with the lithe physicality of his performances during three decades at the helm of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, has died at age 88. Ozawa died of heart failure Tuesday at his home in Tokyo, according to his office, Veroza Japan. The internationally acclaimed maestro led the BSO from 1973 to 2002, longer than any conductor in the orchestra's history, the AP reports. From 2002 to 2010, he was the music director of the Vienna State Opera. He remained active in his later years, particularly in Japan.
Ozawa was the artistic director and founder of the Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival, a music and opera festival in Japan. He and the Saito Kinen Orchestra, which he co-founded, won the Grammy for best opera recording in 2016 for Ravel's "L'Enfant et Les Sortileges (The Child and the Spells)." In 2022, he conducted his Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival to mark its 30th anniversary, which was his last public performance. That year, Ozawa conducted the Saito Kinen Orchestra to deliver Beethoven's "Egmont" Overture live to Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata at the International Space Station. The event took place just as the world was divided over the coronavirus pandemic. "Music can link the hearts of people—transcending words, borders, religion, and politics," Ozawa said in a statement at the time.
Ozawa exerted enormous influence over the BSO during his tenure. He appointed 74 of its 104 musicians, and his celebrity attracted performers including Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman. He helped the symphony become the biggest-budget orchestra in the world, with an endowment that grew from less than $10 million in the early 1970s to more than $200 million in 2002. When Ozawa conducted the Boston orchestra in 2006—four years after he had left—he received a nearly six-minute ovation. Messages of condolence poured in from around the world, including orchestras in Vienna and Berlin, musicians, and residents of Matsumoto. Japanese maestro Yutaka Sado told NHK that Ozawa inspired him to be a conductor: "I've kept following his back, but I could never catch up with him no matter how hard I tried."
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