OZAWA, SEIJI

born Sept. 1, 1935, Hoten, Manchukuo [now in China] Japanese American conductor, especially noted for his energetic style and his sweeping performances of 19th-century Western symphonic works. Ozawa evinced interest in Western music as a child in Japan and hoped to become a pianist. At the age of 16, however, he sustained injuries to his hands and turned then to conducting, studying with Hideo Saito at the Toho School in Tokyo. After conducting with Japanese orchestras, in 1959 he went to Europe, where he won the Besanon International Conductors' Competition. During the following summer he studied under Charles Munch at the Berkshire Music Festival in the United States, where he won the Koussevitzky Prize. At that time he began a long and fruitful association with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. After a further year of study with Herbert von Karajan in Berlin, Ozawa was engaged as an assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic by Leonard Bernstein. Subsequently, he was music director of the Ravinia Festival in Chicago (196468). He became music director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 1965 and of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in 1970. In 1973 he was appointed conductor and music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, for years the exclusive preserve of European conductors.