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Former BSO Music Director Celebrated At Kennedy Center Honors

This is a picture of Seiji Ozawa conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra November 11, 2008
Michael J. Lutch
/
Courtesy of Boston Symphony Orchestra
Seiji Ozawa conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra November 11, 2008

The star-studded gala that is the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony airs Tuesday night and one of the recipients is deeply connected to the Berkshires.Seiji Ozawa started as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1973. He remained there for 29 years, becoming the group’s longest-tenured music director.

“He is obviously one of the most important figures for a variety of reasons, not just the fact that he’s a great leader and led one of the world’s great orchestras and an orchestra that spends every summer in the Berkshires,” said BSO Managing Director Mark Volpe.

Volpe says Ozawa, who was born in what is now China in 1935 to Japanese parents, help spread Western music to Asia.

“When you start thinking about in war-torn Japan and a little Asian guy, with McArthur there trying to figure out how to rebuild the Japanese economy and out of that comes this force of nature named Seiji Ozawa who would be the first world renowned great classical musician,” Volpe said. “Setting standards that’s now been followed by the Koreans and Chinese. Western music has been exploding for the last several decades in Asia.”

In 1960, Ozawa won the Koussevitzky Prize for outstanding student conductor at what is now the Tanglewood Music Center in Lenox. The award is named for Serge Koussevitzky, who was the BSO’s longest-serving music director before Ozawa eclipsed him by four years. In 1994, a 1,200-seat concert hall on Tanglewood’s grounds was named after Ozawa. Volpe, who came to the BSO near the end of Ozawa’s tenure, says the conductor was committed to returning primacy to the organization and Tanglewood, efforts that caused controversy.

“But it was with the intent of making Tanglewood the preeminent summer festival and the preeminent summer advanced study for musicians,” Volpe said. “We certainly have that position in North America so Seiji was very much a part of that.”

Carole King, George Lucas, Rita Moreno and Cicely Tyson are the other 2015 Kennedy Center Honorees recognized earlier this month. Not all of the members of the rock band The Eagles were able to attend the ceremony so the group will be honored next year. Volpe, whose wife served as Ozawa’s assistant in the 1980s, was with the conductor in Washington for the events starting at The White House.

“The president made a great speech about all five, but focused on Seiji’s rugby career,” Volpe said. “He kept on looking at Seiji and saying ‘Rugby?’ Because you know Seiji’s not exactly a large guy.”

After high school, a rugby injury forced Ozawa to switch from playing piano to conducting.

Outside of music, Volpe says Ozawa is committed to his family and sports, specifically Boston’s teams.

“He used to go to the first two or three innings at a baseball game, conduct a concert and go back and watch the 8th and 9th innings,” Volpe recalls. “I did that with him several times.”

Volpe recalls when Ozawa left the BSO for the Vienna State Opera in the early 2000s when the New England Patriots were in the playoffs. The games were played in primetime in the U.S., which is early morning in Vienna.

“The only place you could watch the football game was at U.S. Embassy,” Volpe said. “So he [Ozawa] would go to the U.S. Embassy after his opera and knock on the door. Finally I got a call from the cultural ambassador saying ‘You know he’s not even a U.S. citizen?’ Seiji still travels with a Japanese passport. ‘And we’re spending tons of overtime money so Seiji can watch football till 5 a.m.’ If there is a civilian in the compound, they have to guard the guy. We finally figured out how to get something on his computer where he could watch it so he wasn’t going to the Embassy. That’s how fanatical he was about the Patriots and Red Sox.” 

The Kennedy Center Honors airs on CBS at 9 p.m. Tuesday. Volpe says the ceremony December 6th included a performance by 24 Tanglewood fellows and Yo-Yo Ma. Music is courtesy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Jim is WAMC’s Associate News Director and hosts WAMC's flagship news programs: Midday Magazine, Northeast Report and Northeast Report Late Edition. Email: jlevulis@wamc.org
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