Seiji ozawa children

For more than half a century, Seiji Ozawa was an icon for concert and opera audiences in Europe, North America, and Japan, as well as a steadfast advocate for young musicians. Born in 1935 in Mukden, Manchuria (now Shenyang, China), he graduated in both composition and conducting from Tokyo’s Toho School of Music.

In 1959, he won first prize at the International Competition of Orchestra Conductors in Besançon, France, where he came to the attention of Boston Symphony Music Director Charles Munch, who invited him to Tanglewood, where he won the Koussevitzky Prize as the outstanding student conductor in 1960.

While working with Herbert von Karajan in Berlin, Ozawa came to the attention of Leonard Bernstein, who appointed him assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic for the 1961–62 season. He made his first professional concert appearance in North America in 1962 with the San Francisco Symphony.

Ozawa’s series of major appointments began with the music directorship