Absolutely on Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa

About Haruki MurakamiSeiji Ozawa

In 1978 Haruki Murakami was twenty-nine and running a jazz bar in downtown Tokyo. One April day the impulse to write a novel came to him suddenly while watching a baseball game. That first novel Hear the Wind Sing won a new writers' award and was published the following year. More followed including A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World but it was Norwegian Wood published in 1987 that turned Murakami from a writer into a phenomenon. In works such as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle 1Q84 What I Talk About When I Talk About Running and Men Without Women Murakami's distinctive blend of the mysterious and the everyday of melancholy and humour continues to enchant readers ensuring his place as one of the world's most acclaimed and well-loved writers. Seiji Ozawa served as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for twenty-nine years and was music director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra the San Francisco Symphony the Chicago Symphony Orchestras Ravinia Festival and Wiener Staatsoper. With Kazuyoshi Akiyama he formed the Saito Kinen Orchestra and is the director of the Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival. Ozawa has been deeply involved in musical education through his work with Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra the Ozawa International Chamber Music Academy Okushiga Seiji Ozawa International Academy Switzerland and as founder of the Seiji Ozawa Music Academy Opera Project organizations which provide opportunities to outstanding students in Asia and Europe. Among his many honours Ozawa has been awarded the Officier de la Légion dHonneur in France the Japanese Order of Culture the Kennedy Center Honors and a Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording.