Castleton to honor birthday of the late Maestro Maazel

The Castleton Festival on March 6 will hold a special concert to honor what would have been the 92nd birthday of the Castleton Theatre House founder and storied conductor Lorin Maazel.

The concert will feature two of Maazel’s favorite and rarely performed chamber works by Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi and French composer Ernest Chausson with Castleton Chamber Players Eric Silberger and Daniel Lelchuk, who will both be joined by Orion Weiss, Eric Gratz, Mann-Wen Lo, and Andrew Gonzalez. Attendees are invited to a celebratory reception and a tour of the Maestro’s private Music Library and Studio after the concert

Entry to the Theatre House will require proof of vaccination, or a negative PCR test (taken within 48 hours), or an antigen test (taken within 24 hours of the performance) and a valid ID. Those under 18 are exempted from vaccination proof or test but all audience members will be required to be fully masked while indoors.

Maazel, a world-renown conductor, died in 2014 at age 84 from complications following pneumonia. He founded the Castleton Festival in 2009 with his wife, Dietlinde Turban Maazel, who now oversees its operations.

During his lifetime, Maazel served as artistic director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin; general manager of the Vienna State Opera; and music director of the Radio Symphony of Berlin, the Symphony Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic and the New York Philharmonic. Maazel was a highly regarded composer, with a wide-ranging catalog of works written primarily over the last 15 years. His first opera, 1984, based on George Orwell’s novel, had its world premiere at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and a sold-out revival at La Scala, Milan.