(Tokyo) Famous Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa, who led the world’s most renowned orchestras, died at his home in Tokyo at the age of 88, Japanese media announced Friday.
Public broadcaster NHK and other Japanese media reported that he died Tuesday of heart failure. According to the daily Asahi Shimbun, the funeral took place in the presence of his relatives.
Mr. Ozawa was born in 1935 in China’s Manchuria province, then a Japanese colony.
He began learning the piano in primary school, but after breaking two fingers playing rugby – another of his passions – as a teenager, he turned to conducting.
Mr. Ozawa moved abroad in 1959 and met some of the greatest figures in the world of classical music, including composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, whose orchestra he became an assistant to. New York Philharmonic during the 1961-1962 season.
He went on to conduct the Chicago, Toronto and San Francisco orchestras, and served for 29 years as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, giving his name to a concert hall.
He left his post in 2002 to become principal conductor of the Vienna State Opera, Austria, until 2010.