Seiji Ozawa (1935 - 2024)

 

As one of his disciples stated this morning on NHK's "News at 9", I knew this day was coming but it was still a great shock. Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa（小澤征爾）, who has been called "The World's Ozawa" in his native country, passed away on February 6th at the age of 88.

I'm not a classical music fan by any means although I know and have heard the most famous works by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Bach among other composers. However, I have known about Seiji Ozawa since I was a kid growing up in the 1970s simply because he had that appearance that stood out among other conductors. He had that mane of hair...jet black initially before turning silver grey. And instead of wearing the usual dapper tux, I often remember Ozawa approaching his position in front of the orchestra sporting a turtleneck sweater under his dark blazer. At that time, I gathered that he was a bit more of a rebellious hippie.

I read that Ozawa had been the music director for a number of orchestras around the planet, including a four-year stint with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra from 1965 to 1969. But whenever I heard his name, it was always the Boston Symphony Orchestra that came to mind, and that isn't surprising because he stayed with that organization for almost 30 years. 

Ozawa had a family consisting of some members who had their own level of fame. The one person that I'll mention here because it is KKP is his nephew, singer-songwriter Kenji Ozawa（小沢健二）who was one-half of Shibuya-kei duo Flipper's Guitar. 

To finish off, I did find an episode of the old game show "What's My Line?" in which Ozawa appeared as a guest in 1963, just a few years away from fame. Again, I can't really talk on anything authoritative about him in terms of his work and accomplishments but when I have seen him perform on television, he struck me as the classical version of a rock star thanks to that floppy mane of hair and his cooler fashion sense. My condolences to his family, friends, students, fans and all those in the classical music community.