Japan's Seiji Ozawa, one of world's best-known conductors, dead at 88

TOKYO - Japan's Seiji Ozawa, one of the best-known orchestra conductors of his generation, died on Tuesday (Feb 6) of heart failure at the age of 88, public broadcaster NHK announced on Friday.

Ozawa, who was born in China, spent decades in the rarefied atmosphere of top orchestras around the world but wore baseball-themed ties to interviews and preferred to be called by his first name, not "maestro".

His bushy hair and smile charmed audiences, especially in the United States, where his tenure as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra spanned nearly three decades.

In 2020, Boston proclaimed his birthday, Sept. 1, Seiji Ozawa Day, prompting a pleased Ozawa to remark that Boston was his second home.

"That was a really important time in my life," he was quoted as saying. "No matter where I go, Boston is a part of my heart."

Years later, back in Tokyo, the unpretentious Ozawa was sometimes spotted on subway platforms dressed in a jacket and cap of his beloved Boston Red Sox baseball team and would stop to chat to admirers.

"I'm the complete opposite of a genius, I have always had to make an effort," he told a 2014 news conference.

"I don't really like studying, but I had to do it if I wanted to make music. Anybody with genius can easily do better than me."

A stint with the Vienna State Opera was overshadowed by ill health, including a diagnosis of oesophageal cancer in 2010, the year he left.

He later had surgery for a back injury and suffered bouts of pneumonia, which often kept him sidelined but failed to dent his enthusiasm.

"I will continue doing everything I have always done, teaching and conducting orchestra, until I die," Ozawa told Reuters in a December 2013 interview, at which he wore a Boston Red Sox