“The Saito Kinen Festival, which the conductor Seiji Ozawa founded in 1992, in Matsumoto, Japan, as a tribute to his teacher, Hideo Saito, will be renamed in honor of Mr. Ozawa,” writes Allan Kozinn in Tuesday’s (8/5) New York Times. “Starting in 2015, the annual summer series will be called the Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival…. Ozawa, 78, largely withdrew from concert life in 2010, partly because recurring back problems had made it difficult for him to walk, and also because his doctors discovered that Mr. Ozawa had cancer of the esophagus.… He stayed off the podium for another two years, returning in May 2013 to lead the New Japan Philharmonic, and taking up his duties as general director of the Saito Kinen Festival that summer.” In 1994, the Tanglewood Music Festival named Ozawa Hall for the conductor, who had served as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for many years. “ ‘That somebody like me, who has suffered a major illness and underwent surgery, can speak casually about death is proof that I’ve really recovered,’ Mr. Ozawa added.”
Posted August 5, 2014
