Legendary conductor Lorin Maazel had a peerless affinity with Chinese musicians
Local music lovers mourn death of 84-year-old legendary conductor, which leaves three-year 'Lorin Maazel Fest' project incomplete
Shortly before his debut with the Hong Kong Philharmonic last November, Lorin Maazel, the late, legendary conductor, talked of a "master plan" for humanity.
"I am quite humbled for having been treated so well by destiny up to now," he said. "I've been spared many accidents that could have happened in planes or ships. I have had many close calls in my long life. I'm grateful and hope it'll go on that way."
Maazel died on Sunday at his home in the US state of Virginia at the age of 84.
The maestro's passing will leave the next two rounds of the "Lorin Maazel Fest", his first collaboration with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, unfinished. But his affinity with Chinese musicians and audiences will remain peerless.
Among his many triumphs, he brought a top orchestra to the city for five successive decades. Starting with the Cleveland Orchestra in 1978, he returned again with the famous East Coast Orchestra for the Hong Kong Arts Festival in 1982.
In 1991, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra arrived in the city and Maazel's arrangement of Wagner's Ring Without Words was performed. In 2002, he appeared at the festival again as the new music director of the New York Philharmonic.
In 2006, he made his debut with the National Symphony Orchestra in Taipei. Two years later he and the New York musicians performed in Hong Kong and Beijing en route to what became the American orchestra's historic tour to Pyongyang.