San Francisco Bags One

In what the music world calls the Great Conductor Hunt, one of the choicest quarries has been shaggy-haired Seiji Ozawa, 32, conductor of the Toronto Symphony. He is gifted enough to have been considered a prospect for two of the nation's top orchestras, New York and Chicago (TIME, Jan. 19). Last week the San Francisco Symphony announced that it had bagged Ozawa for itself, starting in the fall of 1970. Retiring Viennese Conductor Josef Krips, 65, who in the past five years has rebuilt San Francisco into one of the nation's solid second-rank ensembles, was largely responsible for the choice of his successor. "Among the younger generation," said Krips, "Ozawa is the finest."

For Ozawa, the move seems a shrewd one. The pressures of conducting the top orchestras could cramp or even crush a youthful career. San Francisco offers him a unit that can grow with him as he broadens and deepens his repertory, and it will require him to conduct only 17 of the season's 35 weeks. As he said last week, this will leave time for "opera, other orchestras, studying, and many other nice things. I think at my age it is important to have many experiences."

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