We are pleased to announce the outline of the 2023 Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival to be held for 19 days from Saturday, August 19 to Wednesday, September 6, 2023.
The 2023 OMF will showcase two orchestra concerts. For <Program A> scheduled for Friday, August 25 and Sunday, August 27, the spirited French maestro Stéphane Denève will conduct the Saito Kinen Orchestra. Having first appeared in OMF in 2013 with the opera L’heure espagnole (performed alongside L’enfant et les sortilèges that won a Grammy for Best Opera Recording), Mr. Denève was originally scheduled to return for the 2020 festival, which was ultimately cancelled due to the impact of COVID-19. This will mark his much-awaited return. The program will include Poulenc’s Stabat Mater and Ravel’s Daphinis et Chloé Suite No. 2. A 100-member chorus will also perform in this concert, some of whom will be chosen through an audition in Matsumoto (scheduled to be held at Kissei Bunka Hall on Saturday, February 11). Anticipations are high for a concert that will be developed together with the local community.
For the subsequent <Program B> scheduled for Saturday, September 2, world-class composer John Williams, who has been a steadfast friend of Ozawa for over 50 years, will conduct SKO. The full program will be announced at a later date, but will include iconic film music masterpieces from Star Wars, E.T., and Harry Potter.
The bond between Ozawa and Mr. Williams dates back to when Ozawa was music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In the 1970s, when Mr. Williams had already established himself as a composer with many masterpieces, it was Ozawa who encouraged him to conduct and invited him in 1979 to take up the baton with the Boston Pops Orchestra. Mr. Williams went on to become music director of the Boston Pops Orchestra 1980–93, and is now its conductor laureate. He continues to be active as a conductor, having recently collaborated with the Vienna Philharmonic (January 2020), the Boston Symphony Orchestra (September 10, 2021), and the Berlin Philharmonic (October 2021), with those performances recorded live and released as CDs.
We will also present the Chamber Concerts to deliver quality chamber music, an array of open events, as well as the Concert for Children and Opera for Children inviting sixth- and seventh-graders who live in Nagano Prefecture. The entire festival lineup will be announced at a later date.
Tickets will go on sale on Saturday, June 10. We invite you to look forward to OMF in its 32nd year.
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