Nodoka Okizawa conducts Brahms

The Saito Kinen Orchestra (SKO) was formed in 1984 by conductor Seiji Ozawa and in 2024, 40 years later, it entered a new phase, as this concert from the Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival (OMF) in August of that year shows. On the programme were masterpieces performed so often and so memorably Ozawa and his orchestra: Brahms's First and Second Symphonies. Here the SKO performs them under Japanese conductor Okizawa Nodoka, who won the Besançon International Conducting Competition in 2019, which Ozawa also won as a young man. And it was Ozawa himself, deeply moved by Okizawa’s debut with the the SKO in 2022, who appointed her the first OMF Principal Guest Conductor in the festival’s history. (edited)

Ensemble: 

Saito Kinen Orchestra

Conductor: 

Nodoka Okisawa