Maazel cuts back

Lorin Maazel, who has canceled a number of recent conducting dates for health reasons, will give up his post as music director of the Munich Philharmonic and will not take on any professional engagements in the 2014-15 season.

The 84-year-old conductor, however, is at work with participants in the Castleton Festival, which runs from June 28 to July 20 at his estate in Rappahannock County in northwestern Virginia, and is working on plans for the 2015 edition of the festival.

In a statement posted on the Castleton Festival website, Dietlinde Turban Maazel, wife of the conductor and associate artistic director of the festival, says that medical tests her husband has undergone detected no signs of serious illness, and “he is recovering rapidly from what can best be described as a case of complete exhaustion brought on by a daunting conducting and travel schedule.”

Maazel writes that he has “been encouraged by my doctors that I should be fit as a conductor to take up my duties starting [with] the season following 2014-15,” with the possibility of “occasional appearances along the way.”

More information on the 2014 Castleton Festival:

https://www.castletonfestival.org/