Maazel to Munich?

Lorin Maazel, the former New York Philharmonic music director and maestro of the midsummer Castleton Festival on his estate in Virginia's Rappahannock County, reportedly is about to be named music director of the Munich Philharmonic. (The report comes from Germany's Süddeutscher Zeitung, via Musical America.)

The Munich Philharmonic, once the city's second orchestra (overshadowed by the Bavarian State Radio Orchestra, which Maazel led from 1993-2002), has risen in prominence in recent decades under a succession of stellar conductors: Sergiu Celibidache, James Levine and its current director, Christian Thielemann, who's leaving next year to take over the Saxon State Opera in Dresden.