TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK

DOHA LORIN Maazel will lead the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra (QPO) at the Katara Cultural Village Opera House on Saturday at 7:30 pm in Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony and Maurice Ravel’s Rapsodie espagnole.

With the concert Maestro Maazel, the longtime music director of the New York Philharmonic, will continue a collaboration that began with the Qatar Philharmonic’s inaugural performance in 2008 and has included concerts in London, Paris, Milan and Washington.

For over five decades, Lorin Maazel has been one of the world’s most esteemed and sought-after conductors. In 2010-11 he completed his fifth and final season as the inaugural music director of the spectacular, Santiago Calatrava-designed opera house in Valencia, Spain, the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia.

Music director of the New York Philharmonic from 2002 to 2009, he assumes the same post with the Munich Philharmonic at the start of the 2012-13 season. He is also the founder and artistic director of a new festival based on his farm property in Virginia, the Castleton Festival, in which numerous Qatar Philharmonic musicians have participated.

A second-generation American born in Paris, Lorin Maazel began violin lessons at age five and conducting lessons at age seven.

Between ages nine and 15 he made his New York debut at the 1939 World’s Fair; led the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, sharing a programme with Leopold Stokowski, and conducted most of the major American orchestras, including the NBC Symphony at the invitation of Toscanini.

His New York Philharmonic debut was in 1942 at the age of 12. He quickly established himself as a major artiste, appearing at Bayreuth in 1960 (the first American to do so), with the Boston Symphony in 1961, and at the Salzburg Festival in 1963. In the years since, Maestro Maazel has conducted more than 150 orchestras in no fewer than 5,000 opera and concert performances.

He has made over 300 recordings, winning 10 Grands Prix du Disques.

Gustav Mahler was late Romantic music’s ultimate big thinker. His first symphony was loosely based on Jean Paul’s novel, Titan. Jean Paul depicted a youth with a burning artistic desire that the world has no use for. Mahler apparently saw himself in this figure, but the music contradicts this program in many ways, especially its triumphant conclusion.

Mahler’s first symphony was a stunning achievement for a young composer, a fully mature, integrated and highly effective work.

Qatar Philharmonic Executive Director Kurt Meister looks forward to the performance with anticipation.

“It has been just over three years since Maestro Maazel first brought our orchestra together. The 101 musicians that came out of the competitive auditions hailed from no less than 31 countries.

Through Mahler’s music and Lorin’s baton our audience will hear just how well they’ve come together,” Meister said.

The next concert of the Philharmonic will be on January 14, when Lebanese- American conductor George Pehlivanian and pianist Herbert Schuch perform Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini.