Seiji Ozawa and International Music Academy

NEW YORK, April 29 /PRNewswire/ --
- Prestigious training academy for young musicians commemorates fifth anniversary by launching onto world stage
World renowned conductor Seiji Ozawa and the International Music Academy-Switzerland will commemorate their fifth anniversary with their first international performance at the esteemed Theatre des Champs-Elysees, Paris on July 1st. The group will also perform in Geneva on June 29th at Victoria Hall. Founded in 2005 by Seiji Ozawa, the International Music Academy-Switzerland is comprised of exceptional chamber music students from the top academies around the world. This year's ensemble features 26 students from Japan, France, Australia, Korea, USA, Russia, Poland, Georgia, Holland and Norway. The academy performs annually in Geneva but for the first time, Seiji Ozawa is excited to be launching this extraordinary ensemble of musicians onto the world stage.
Selected through a rigorous process by renowned musical pedagogues, the International Music Academy-Switzerland is comprised of student string musicians of the highest caliber. Students are given the unsurpassed opportunity of training for ten days over the summer on the shores of Lake Geneva, with Seiji Ozawa and other famous teachers such as Robert Mann, Sadao Harada, Pamela Frank and Nobuko Imai. This year, the culmination of this process is these two concerts, in Paris and Geneva, which afford the students excellent experience performing on the world-stage, while giving audiences an opportunity to hear this superb ensemble. This year's concert in Paris will launch the first international performance, with their inspired teacher and conductor, Seiji Ozawa, at the helm. The program includes pieces by Beethoven, Mozart, Debussy, Schubert, Bartok, Brahms, Schoenberg and Tchaikovsky.
The International Music Academy-Switzerland is an exclusive annual project created by Seiji Ozawa, who, following in the tradition of his late great mentor Hideo Saito, believes that chamber music is one of the key pillars of classical music training. The International Music Academy-Switzerland is a non-profit organization.
Seiji Ozawa is currently the music director of the Vienna State Opera, a position he has held since 2002. His other historic residencies include the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Symphony (where he was music director for 29 years) and the Vienna Philharmonic. In 1992, Seiji Ozawa founded the Saito Kinen Festival Matsumoto as a tribute to his teacher and mentor, the late Hideo Saito. The festival grew naturally from the success of the Saito Kinen Orchestra (SKO), which he founded on the 10th Anniversary of Hideo Saito's death in 1984. Ozawa continues to tour internationally with the Saito Kinen Orchestra, as well as regularly conducting the New Japan Philharmonic and major European orchestras. Ozawa has founded many other teaching institutions, including the Ongaku-juku and the Saito Kinen Chamber Music Study Group for Young People, with the aim of fostering classical music training around the world.