Venue: National Centre for the Performing Arts - Concert Hall
Dates: Apr. 05, 2012
Duration: approximate 105 mins (intermission included)

Conductor
Lorin Maazel
For over five decades, Lorin Maazel has been one of the world's most esteemed and sought-after conductors. In 2010-11, he is completing his fifth and final season as the inaugural Music Director of the opera house in the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia. Music Director of the New York Philharmonic from 2002-2009, 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, launched to exceptional acclaim in 2009 and expanding its activities nationally and internationally in 2011 and beyond.

Maestro Maazel's 2010-11 season was highlighted by productions of Aida and his own opera 1984 at the Palau de les Arts; two concerts with the newly formed resident orchestra of China's National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing, and return appearances with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He embarked on a Mahler cycle in London with the Philharmonia (for the Mahler centennial year of 2011) .In March 2011, he took two Castleton Festival Opera productions to Berkeley, California (Cal Performances) for the West Coast debut of the company, with Britten's Rape of Lucretia and Albert Herring.

Lorin Maazel is a second-generation American born in Paris. He studied with Vladimir Bakaleinikoff, and appeared publicly for the first time at age eight. Between ages nine and fifteen, he conducted most of the major American orchestras, including the NBC Symphony at the invitation of Toscanini.In 1951 he made his European conducting debut.He quickly established himself as a major artist, appearing at Bayreuth in 1960 (the first American to do so), with the Boston Symphony in 1961, and at the Salzburg Festival in 1963.

Alongside his prodigious performing activity, Maestro Maazel has found time to work with and nurture young artists. Through his Chateauville Foundation, in Castleton, Virginia, he has created a new Festival and training program for young artists, bringing together aspiring singers, instrumentalists and conductors to work in an intensive, collaborative environment, with guidance from senior artists/mentors.

Presenter
Philharmonia Orchestra
The Philharmonia Orchestra is one of the world's great orchestras. Acknowledged as the UK's foremost musical pioneer, with an extraordinary recording legacy, the Philharmonia leads the field for its quality of playing, and for its innovative approach to audience development, residencies, music education and the use of new technologies in reaching a global audience. Together with its relationships with the world's most sought-after artists, most importantly its Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor Esa-Pekka Salonen, the Philharmonia Orchestra is at the heart of British musical life. 

Today, the Philharmonia has the greatest claim of any orchestra to be the UK's National Orchestra. It is committed to presenting the same quality, live music-making in venues throughout the country as it brings to London and the great concert halls of the world. In 2011/12 the Orchestra is performing more than 160 concerts, as well as presenting chamber performances by the Soloists of the Philharmonia Orchestra, and recording scores for films, CDs and computer games. Under Esa-Pekka Salonen a series of flagship, visionary projects – City of Dreams: Vienna 1900 -1935 (2009) and Bill Viola's Tristan und Isolde (2010) - have been critically acclaimed and during 2011 Salonen presents Infernal Dance: Inside the World of Béla Bartók, a pan-European exploration of the life, influences and music of the composer. For16 years now the Orchestra's work has been underpinned by its much admired UK and International Residency Programme, which began in 1995 with the launch of its residencies at the Bedford Corn Exchange and London's Southbank Centre. During 2011/12 the Orchestra not only performs more than 35 concerts at Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall, but also celebrates its 15th year as Resident Orchestra of De Montfort Hall in Leicester and its 11th year as Orchestra in Partnership at The Anvil in Basingstoke; and launches a new residency at the new Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury. The Orchestra's extensive touring schedule this season also includes performances in more than 30 of the finest international concert halls in Europe, China and the United Arab Emirates, with conductors including Esa-Pekka Salonen, Lorin Maazel and Kurt Masur.

During its first six decades, the Philharmonia Orchestra has collaborated with most of the great classical artists of the 20th century. Conductors associated with the Orchestra include Furtwangler, Richard Strauss, Toscanini, Cantelli, Karajan and Giulini. Otto Klemperer was the first of many outstanding Principal Conductors, and other great names have included Lorin Maazel (Associate Principal Conductor), Riccardo Muti (Principal Conductor and Music Director), Giuseppe Sinopoli (Music Director) and Sir Charles Mackerras (Principal Guest Conductor). As well as Esa-Pekka Salonen, current titled conductors are Christoph von Dohnányi (Honorary Conductor for Life), Kurt Sanderling (Conductor Emeritus) and Vladimir Ashkenazy (Conductor Laureate).

Programme
Symphony No. 5  Gustav Mahler