CERRITOS CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS
12700 Center Court Dr. Cerritos, CA. 90703
Tickets: (800) 300-4345 or (562) 916-8500 Infoline: (562) 916-8501 email: ticket_office@cerritoscenter.com
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SEIJI OZAWA LEADS SAITO KINEN ORCHESTRA IN FIRST US TOUR PERFORMING MAHLER'S SYMPHONY No. 9 AT THE CERRITOS CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS MONDAY, JANUARY 8, 8:00 P.M.

Four-City Tour to Include Dates in San Francisco, Chicago and New York's Carnegie Hall

CERRITOS, CA - Seiji Ozawa will lead the Saito Kinen Orchestra on its first-ever American tour, performing Mahler's Symphony No. 9 at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts Monday, January 8, 8:00 p.m. Ticket prices range from $75-$55 and are available at the Cerritos Center Ticket Office or by calling (800) 300-4345. As part of a four-city tour, the Saito Kinen Orchestra will perform January 7-11, with additional concerts at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco (1/7), Orchestra Hall in Chicago (1/10), and concluding with a performance at Carnegie Hall in New York (1/11).

The Saito Kinen Orchestra was founded in September 1984 when Seiji Ozawa led the effort to organize a special concert series to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the death of Hideo Saito, the renowned Japanese educator who founded the distinguished Toho Gakuen School in Tokyo. Under the leadership of Mr. Ozawa and Kazuyoshi Akiyama, more than 100 of Mr. Saito's former students came from around the world to assemble in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan, for this series of performances, which received great public and critical acclaim. This response - together with the musicians' collective artistic satisfaction and desire to perpetuate Mr. Saito's passion for music and unique pedagogical legacy of excellence in performance - led to the decision to continue as a permanent ensemble. In September 1987 the Saito Kinen Orchestra made its first tour of Europe, the great success of which led to subsequent European tours in 1989, 1990, and 1991. The 1991 European tour was followed by a trip to the United States, where the orchestra made its U.S. debut opening Carnegie Hall's 101st season.

In September 1992 the Saito Kinen Orchestra began a new stage in its history when it became the resident ensemble of the first international festival in Japan, the "Saito Kinen Festival," located in the city of Matsumoto in the Japanese Alps. Since its inception, the Festival has produced a number of 20th-Century operas including Stravinsky's "The Rake's Progress" in 1995, Honegger's "Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher" ("Joan of Arc at the Stake") in 1993, Poulenc's "Les Mamelles de Tirésias" in 1996, and Poulenc's "Dialogues des Carmélites" in 1998. The performance at the Takemitsu Memorial Concert Hall marked the Saito Kinen Orchestra's first performance in Tokyo since the ensemble's founding concerts there in 1984.


SAITO KINEN ORCHESTRA RECORDINGS

In conjunction with their tours and performances at the Saito Kinen Festival, Mr. Ozawa and the Saito Kinen Orchestra have made many recordings for Philips Classics, including all four Brahms symphonies and Brahms' Hungarian Dances Nos. 1, 3, 5, 6, and 10.

Other recordings for Philips Classics include an album featuring music of Toru Takemitsu; Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings and Mozart's "Eine kleine Nachtmusik"; Beethoven's Seventh Symphony and Schubert's Symphony in B minor, "Unfinished"; Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony and Rimsky-Korsakov's "Capriccio espagnol"; and a disc pairing Schoenberg's "Verklärte Nacht" and Stravinsky's "Apollon musagète."

Winner of the 1993 International Classical Music Award, the Saito Kinen Festival performance of Stravinsky's "Oedipus Rex" is available on compact disc and laser disc on the Philips label. Additional recordings include the 1993 Saito Kinen Festival performance of Honegger's "Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher" and a live recording of the 1984 Hideo Saito Memorial Concert including Mozart's Divertimento, K.136, Schumann's Symphony No. 3, "Rhenish," Strauss' "Don Quixote," an arrangement by Hideo Saito of the Bach Chaconne, and Paganini's "Perpetual Motion." Other Philips Classics recordings featuring Seiji Ozawa and the Saito Kinen Orchestra include Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6, "Pathétique"; Beethoven's "Egmont" Overture and Symphony No. 3, "Eroica"; and Schubert's Symphony in C, "The Great." Saito Kinen Festival opera productions that have been recorded by Philips include Stravinsky's "The Rake's Progress" and Poulenc's "Les Mamelles de Tirésias."

SEIJI OZAWA

The 2000-2001 season is Seiji Ozawa's 28th as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Since becoming the BSO's music director in 1973 he has devoted himself to the orchestra for more than a quarter-century, the longest tenure of any music director currently active with a major orchestra, and paralleled in BSO history only by the 25-year tenure of the legendary Serge Koussevitzky, which Mr. Ozawa has now surpassed.

During his career, Mr. Ozawa has earned numerous awards and recognitions. In 1999 he was named a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur by French President Jacques Chirac, recognizing not only his work as a conductor, but also his support of French composers, his devotion to the French public, and his work at the Paris Opera. In December 1997 he was named "Musician of the Year" by Musical America. In February 1998, fulfilling a longtime ambition of joining musicians across the globe, he closed the Opening Ceremonies at the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, leading the "Ode to Joy" from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, with performers including six choruses - in Japan, Australia, China, Germany, South Africa, and the United States - linked by satellite. In 1994 he became the first recipient of Japan's Inouye Sho (the "Inouye Award," named after this century's preeminent Japanese novelist) recognizing lifetime achievement in the arts. Also that year, Seiji Ozawa Hall was opened at Tanglewood, the BSO's summer home in western Massachusetts, where Mr. Ozawa has also played a key role as both teacher and administrator in the activities of the Tanglewood Music Center, the BSO's summer training academy for young professional musicians from all over the world.

Besides his concerts throughout the year with the Boston Symphony, he conducts the Berlin Philharmonic and Vienna Philharmonic on a regular basis, and appears also with the New Japan Philharmonic, the London Symphony, the Orchestre National de France, La Scala in Milan and the Vienna Staatsoper. Besides his many Boston Symphony recordings, he has recorded with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Saito Kinen Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, the Orchestre National de France, the Orchestre de Paris, the Philharmonia of London, the San Francisco Symphony, the Chicago Symphony and the Toronto Symphony, among others. In 1992 he made his debut with the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

In the fall of 2002 he will begin a new phase in his artistic life that follows from his increasing interest in and affinity for opera: he will become music director of the Vienna State Opera, where he has maintained a long association as a guest conductor leading productions in that house as well as concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic in Vienna, at Salzburg, and on tour.

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CALENDAR LISTING
Event: Saito Kinen Orchestra
Seiji Ozawa, Music Director
Program: Symphony No. 9 in D major (1909) by Gustav Mahler
Andante comodo
Im Tempo eines gemächlichen Ländlers
Rondo Burleske
Adagio
Where: Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts
12700 Center Court Drive, Cerritos
When: Monday, January 8, 8:00 p.m.
Ticket Prices: $75/65/60/55
For Tickets: Tickets are available at the Cerritos Center Ticket Office or by calling (800) 300-4345.

Source: Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts

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