Famous conductor Lorin Maazel passes away

Newsroom 17/07/2014 | 12:19

The organizers of George Enescu International Music Festival announced on Thursday that Lorin Maazel, famous american conductor and violin player, has passed away.

Maestro Maazel participated at the first post-communist editions. In 1995, during the 12th edition of the festival, Lorin Maazel conducted an exceptional concert with the Bayerischer Runfunk orchestra, thereby contributing to the festival’s international recognition.

According to his official biography, Lorin Maazel conducted over 150 orchestras in 5,000 concerts. He dedicated 75 years of his life to music, starting violin lessons at only 5 years old and two years later he started to attend conducting lessons.

Maazel studied under Vladimir Bakaleinikoff, and his first public appearance took place when he was only 7 years old. There are over 300 published recordings of the maestro with works from Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy, Mahler, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and Richard Strauss.

Lorin Maazel worked as an artistic director for the Deutsche Opera in Berlin, as a general director for the State Opera in Vienna and as a musical director for the Radio Symphony of Berlin, Symphony Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio, Pittsburgh Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra and Munich Philharmonic.