Seiji Ozawa

One day in June 2003, thousands of people came to the Waldbühne Park to spend the night with Gershwin, the composer of Porgy and Bess, the super energised Seiji Ozawa conducting the venerable Berliner Philharmoniker and the famous Marcus Roberts jazz trio.

This Blu-ray sampler with carefully selected concerts accompanies Seiji Ozawa's impressive career over 3 decades. Seiji Ozawa was not only Japan’s best-known conductor but also the founder of the Saito Kinen Festival in Matsumoto, which in 2015 was renamed the Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival. Special feature included in this edition from Matsumoto: on the occasion of Maestro Ozawa’s 80th birthday, Martha Argerich and Matthias Goerne joined the orchestra to perform Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, Op. 80, plus a rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ - a deeply emotional moment for the Maestro!

A great performance at the Carnegie Hall 1991 Tschaikovsky „Pique Dame“ under Seiji Ozawa with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Berliner Phlharmoniker on Jan 23rd, 2008

Seiji Ozawa conducts the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in this 1993 performance at Berlin's Waldbuhne, an amphitheater tucked into a natural valley and modeled on a similar structure in the ancient Greek city of Epidaurus. From this lovely vantage point, viewers are treated to an evening of Russian favorites, including Igor Stravinsky's "Firebird," Pyotr Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker" suite, Aram Khachaturian's "Sabre Dance" and more.