Boston Symphony Orchestra Concert Programs, Summer, 2001
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— SEIJI OZAWA The 2000-2001 season is Seiji Ozawa's twenty-eighth as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Since becoming the BSO's music director in 1973 he has devoted himself to the orches- tra for more than a quarter-century, the longest tenure of any music director currently active with a major orchestra, and paralleled in BSO history only by the twenty-five-year tenure of the legendary Serge Koussevitzky. In recent years, numerous honors and achieve- ments have underscored Mr. Ozawa's standing on the international music scene. In December 1998, Mr. Ozawa was named a Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur by French President Jacques Chirac, recog- nizing not only his work as a conductor, but also his support of French composers, his devotion to the French public, and his work at the Paris Opera. In De- cember 1997 he was named "Musician of the Year" by MusicalAmerica, the international direc- tory of the performing arts. In February 1998, fulfilling a longtime ambition of uniting musi- cians across the globe, he closed the Opening Ceremonies at the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, leading the "Ode to Joy" from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with performers including six choruses—in Japan, Australia, China, Germany, South Africa, and the United States linked by satellite. In 1994 he became the first recipient ofJapan's Inouye Sho (the "Inouye Award," named after this century's preeminent Japanese novelist) recognizing lifetime achieve- ment in the arts. 1994 also saw the inauguration of Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, the BSO's summer home in western Massachusetts. At Tanglewood he has also played a key role as both teacher and administrator at the Tanglewood Music Center, the BSO's summer training acade- my for young professional musicians from all over the world. In 1992 Mr. Ozawa co-founded the Saito Kinen Festival in Matsumoto, Japan, in memory of his teacher at Tokyo's Toho School of Music, Hideo Saito, a central figure in the cultivation of Western music and musical tech- nique in Japan. Also in 1992 he made his debut with the Metropolitan Opera in New York. More recently, in 2000, reflecting his strong commitment to the teaching and training of young musicians, he founded the Ozawa Ongaku-juku ("Ozawa Music Academy") in Japan, at which aspiring young orchestral musicians collaborate with Mr. Ozawa and professional singers in fully staged opera productions. Besides his concerts throughout the year with the Boston Sym- phony, Mr. Ozawa conducts the Berlin Philharmonic and Vienna Philharmonic on a regular basis, and appears also with the New Japan Philharmonic, the London Symphony, the Orchestre National de France, La Scala in Milan, and the Vienna Staatsoper. In addition to his many Boston Symphony recordings, he has recorded with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Phil- harmonic, the Saito Kinen Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, the Orchestre National de France, the Orchestre de Paris, the Philharmonia of London, the San Francisco Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, and the Toronto Symphony, among others. In the fall of 2002, following that summer's Tanglewood season, he will begin a new phase in his artistic life when he becomes music director of the Vienna State Opera, where he has maintained a long association as a guest conductor leading productions in that house as well as concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic in Vienna, at Salzburg, and on tour. Throughout his tenure as music director of the Boston Symphony, Seiji Ozawa has main- tained the orchestra's distinguished reputation both at home and abroad, with concerts in Sym- phony Hall, at Tanglewood, on tours to Europe, Japan, Hong Kong, China, and South America, and across the United States. He has also upheld the BSO's commitment to new music through the frequent commissioning of new works. In addition, he and the orchestra have recorded nearly 140 works, representing more than fifty different composers, on ten labels. Mr. Ozawa won his first Emmy award in 1976, for the BSO's PBS television series "Evening at Symphony." He received his second Emmy in September 1994, for Individual Achievement in Cultural Pro- gramming, for "Dvorak in Prague: A Celebration," a gala Boston Symphony concert subse- quently released by Sony Classical in both audio and video formats. Mr. Ozawa holds honorary.