娛樂新聞:Classical Music World Mourns Conductor Lorin Maazel(音頻文字)
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That is Lori Maazel at the podium conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in a performance of Ravel's Bolero. In a career that stretched more than seven decades. Maazel led ochstrals, conducted operas, and mentored a new generations of young conductors.
Maazel began his own career at age 9 when he conducted the ochstarl at 1939 New York World's Fair. Two years later, he conducted the NBC Symphony at the Radio City Music Hall. After college, Maazel toured the world acting as a guest conductor before settling to lead several top orchestras including Orchestre National de France, Deutsche Oper , Cleveland Orchestra, the Vienne State Opera.
Among the many orchestras Maazel conducted was The Pittsburgh Symphony, where he was music director from 1988 to 1996. Kirk Mspratt who was resident conductor at the symphony, working under Maazel: “The most astonishing thing about Mr. Maazel was his prodigious memory. I remember even when I was a student in Vienna, I went to see ‘Carmen’ one night, and there was an announcement that the conductor who was supposed to conduct ‘Carmen’ had taken very, very ill, and they took him to the hospital. Mr. Maazel was the music director of the opera at the time in Vienna. They called him, and he said, ‘Oh, no problem, I’ll just put my shoes on and come over and conduct.’ Fifteen minutes later he was there in a grey leisure suit conducting ‘Carmen,’ from memory.”
In 2008, when Maazel was at the helm of New York Philharmonic , the orchestra was invited to perform in perform in the capital of North Korea. A concert proved controversial. Though the U.S. State Department encouraged the Philharmonic’s trip to Pyongyang, many pundits criticized the concert as giving credibility to North Korea’s repressive regime.
Maazel responded to his critics, writing in the Wall Street Journal that “Artists have a broader role to play in the public arena. But it must be totally apolitical, nonpartisan and free of issue-specific agendas.” The goal, he wrote, was to bring “peoples and their cultures together on common ground.”
Maazel died Sunday in rural Rappahannock County, Virginia where he and his wife Dietlinde Turban-Maazel had turned their farm into the site of summer music festival. The Maazels founded Castleton Festival in 2009 to give promising young musicians the opportunity to perform in high-level productions and learn from famous artists. Maazel was the lead tutor, teaching and conducting coaching singers and instrumentlists and leading performances with his baton. Lori Maazel was 84 years old.