OHZAWA, HISATO  BIOGRAPHY

Hisato Ohzawa was born into an affluent family in the Japanese port city of Kobe on 1st August 1907. He studied in the 1930s in Boston and Paris under Converse, Sessions, Schoenberg, Dukas and Nadia Boulanger, and conducted performances of his own works with the Boston Symphony and Pasdeloup Orchestras. With an extensive knowledge of late Romanticism, contemporary composers and jazz, he had a good command of diverse styles, but he found contemporary conditions in Japan more limiting, and his works were considered technically and conceptually too difficult by the Japanese audience and orchestras of the day. His independence led him to turn to music that met the needs of his time, during and after the war. Ohzawa began to spend much of his time composing and performing music for radio, film and revue. After the war, with Japan under American occupation, he worked as a conductor, composer and arranger for big band jazz and light music. There has been wide neglect of his work since his sudden death in 1953.