Seiji Ozawa, the world-famous Japanese conductor, known among other things for his work for almost thirty years with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, where a concert hall still bears his name, has died at the age of 88.
According to public broadcaster NHK and other local media, the death - which occurred on Tuesday - was caused by heart failure, and only close relatives attended the funeral.
Born in 1935 to Japanese parents in Manchuria, then a colony of the Rising Sun, Ozawa grew up in Japan and began studying piano in elementary school.
Following another passion of his, rugby, he broke two fingers as a teenager and therefore moved on to conducting.
After his studies he left for Europe, in 1959 he won first prize in an international competition in Besancon, France, and subsequently worked with some of the greatest luminaries in the world of classical music, including the composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, becoming his assistant at the New York Philharmonic in the 1961-1962 season.
Ozawa then led orchestras in Chicago, Toronto and San Francisco before coming to Boston.
He left the United States in 2002 to become chief conductor of the Vienna State Opera until 2010.
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