TOKYO -- Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa, who served as the music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, died of heart failure at his home in Tokyo on Tuesday. He was 88.
Ozawa was born in the former Manchuria, now part of northeastern China. After a rugby injury, he gave up on becoming a pianist and instead went on to learn the basics of conducting under musician and professor Hideo Saito at the Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo.