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2024-02-26 04:30:00
Absolutely on Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa (Book Review)
[…] lovers of classical music have at least a few recordings in their collection that feature Maestro Ozawa. He was at the helm of the venerable Boston Symphony Orchestra for nearly 30 years and with that orchestra made a number of noteworthy recordings, especially of French music. In particular, his recordings of Ravel with the BSO are among the finest available. Later in his career he returned to Japan and made some outstanding recordings with the Saito Kinen Orchestra, which he founded. There is most likely a subset of classical musical fans that includes fans of the Japanese author Haruki Murakami. I first became acquainted with his writing when I pretty much randomly picked up a paperback copy some years ago of his novel Kafka on the Shore to read while recuperating from some impending surgery. I found myself spellbound, and since then have read just about every book he has ever published, fiction […]
2024-02-13 23:03:00
After the question arose elsewhere, I asked San Francisco Symphony about Seiji Ozawa's appearances with SFS after he stepped down as music director. Here's the answer:After the 1976-77 season, Ozawa conducted:January 11-14, 1978 – Tchaikovsky Swan LakeJanuary 18-21, 1978 – Brahms Symphony No. 3 & Roger Sessions When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'dNovember 9, 1986 – Pension Fund Concert – Ravel’s La Valse, Schumann’s Symphony No. 2, and Kei Anjo’s Who-ei for Erh-hu and OrchestraFebruary 23, 1993 – Pension Fund Concert – Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 and Bernstein’s The Age of AnxietyOctober 29, 2001 – Pension Fund Concert – Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8 and Berlioz Symphonie fantastique Ozawa also came to Davies Symphony Hall with the BSO twice (March 12, 1981 and February 13, 1996) and Saito Kinen Orchestra once (January 7, 2001).
2022-08-29 13:53:16
Bruckner, 3 conductors, 2022
[…] Bruckner: Seiji Ozawa, born on September 1st of 1935. One of the most important conductors of the last 50 years, Ozawa was sometimes criticized, especially at the end of his tenure at the Boston Symphony Orchestra. We have a special feeling for Ozawa, as we heard him conduct the Boston Symphony in the most remarkable Mahler 3rd in 1998 in Vienna’s Musikverein. Here’s the first movement of Bruckner’s Symphony no. 7. Seiji Ozawa conducts the Saito Kinen Orchestra.
2019-06-07 02:00:00
[…] seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French collections, especially Charles Perrault’s Contes de ma Mère l’Oye (Mother Goose Tales, published in 1697). That's right, it's all chamber music, which has me scratching my head. They must really need the rehearsal time for the Ravel.And here's the cast, not including conductor Martyn Brabbins.Highly acclaimed for her “passionate intensity and remarkable vocal beauty,” mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard stars as The Child in these performances of Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges—a role she recorded with Seiji Ozawa and the Saito Kinen Orchestra on the Decca Classics label, winning a 2016 Grammy Award® in the category of Best Opera Recording. Leonard made her SFS debut in 2013 and has been featured in several notable performances since then, including Tilson Thomas’ From the Diary of Anne Frankin November 2018, Bernstein’s Arias and Barcarolles in September 2017 and the semi-staged On the Town in May 2016, and Ravel’s L’Heure espagnole in June 2015. The accomplished cast also includes sopranos Anna Christy (The Fire, The Princess, The Nightingale), Nikki […]