Kent Nagano (born November 22, 1951) is a Japanese-American conductor. He was born in Berkeley, California while his parents were in graduate school at the University of California. He grew up in Morro Bay. He studied sociology and music at the University of California, Santa Cruz, but moved to San Francisco State University in 1976 to study law. While there, he took composition courses from Grosvenor Cooper and Roger Nixon. His first conducting job was with the Opera Company of Boston, where he was assistant conductor to Sarah Caldwell. Read more on Last.fm