Taking Up Ozawa's Baton

With the news that Seiji Ozawa, conductor and music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for 25 years, was leaving in 2002 for the Vienna State Opera, Boston was abuzz Wednesday with speculation about who could possibly replace his star quality.

Ozawa's tenure at the BSO he is the longest-serving current music director of any major orchestra makes him Boston's answer to Cal Ripken Jr.

"For most people in this community, Seiji personifies the Boston Symphony," said Catherine Peterson, executive director of Arts Boston, a nonprofit group that markets Boston's arts.

Correspondent Joyce Kulhawik of CBS Station WBZ-TV in Boston reports that Ozawa's growing interest in opera reportedly led him to accept the Vienna position.

Ozawa first conducted the BSO in 1964 as a near-penniless music student. He established himself by winning the Koussevitzky Prize for outstanding student conductor at Tanglewood and in 1961 became assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein, who was on Tanglewood's faculty.

"I think he felt, if he completes his three years, he'll be music director 28 years, in today's world, that's unprecedented," said Mark Volpe, the general manager of what is the world's busiest orchestra.

Under Ozawa, the BSO became the biggest-budget ensemble in the world, with an endowment that grew from less than $10 million in the early 1970s to more than $200 million today.

He has helped build the orchestra, which has had its ups and downs in its 118-year history, into an elite international orchestra with broad appeal to music aficionados, casual concertgoers, foreign tourists and that important but hard-to-reach audience, children.

Ozawa is expected to remain with the BSO through the Tanglewood season in the year 2002. The announcement of his departure surprised but didn't stun Boston's music community, which was aware of Ozawa's desire to conduct opera. He has included opera numbers in his concerts for two decades.

With open musical directorships in Philadelphia, Atlanta, Houston, Indianapolis and Cincinnati, the Boston orchestra may be hard put to find Ozawa's successor.

"First and foremost, you look for a great conductor, someone who can inspire the music-making on stage. That's first and foremost. You need leadership skills, too, and some sense of position of the orchestra in the community," says Volpe.

On the lighter side, Volpe says Ozawa, who remains an avid sports fan, still has one wish before he leaves Boston.

Ozawa opens the summer season in the Berkshires at Tanglewood on July 9.