Artistic Director – Dietlinde Turban Maazel
Dietlinde Turban Maazel’s first stage appearance at the age of 19 as Gretchen in Goethe’s Faust at Munich State Theatre brought her national fame. Thanks to scores of films and TV plays, she won Germany’s coveted Bambi Award as Best Actress of the Year (1983). Among her film credits: the title role in Goethe’s Stella, Luise in Schiller’s Love and Intrigue, Euridice in Monteverdi’s Orfeo (directed by J.-P. Ponnelle), Bloodline (Sidney Sheldon), and Mussolini and I, starring opposite Anthony Hopkins. In 2004 she created her first one-woman play Constantly Risking Absurdity (Cherry Lane Theatre, NY) and starred in 2013 as “Elle” in Cocteau’s La voix humaine. For 7 years she narrated a Live Easter-Monday TV Show in Munich with Lorin Maazel and the SOBR.
Ms. Turban Maazel appeared as soloist/narrator with the New York Philharmonic, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the National Symphony, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Symphony Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio, and the Munich Philharmonic. She recorded several audiobooks with Naxos and other companies.
Dietlinde Turban Maazel’s background includes 44 years of working as a performer and educator, as well as continued training in vocal performance, yoga, ayurvedic nutrition, and psychology (Expressive Arts Therapy, Psychodrama and Somatic Experiencing).
She started violin lessons at the age of 6, was exposed to extensive chamber music experience in her teenage years, and studied classical dance and voice at the Musikhochschule & Ballettakademie München, the Martha Graham Studio NY, and the Aspen Music Festival. Her theatre and music studies include Master Classes with Peter Brook, Lee Strasberg, the T. Schreiber Studio NYC, Prof. Gerhard Hetzel (Vienna), Dorothy Delay (Juilliard), and Ron Browning (Nashville).
In 1996 she founded a private school for low-income families on her Virginia Estate and developed a pilot educational project designed to explore new ways of integrating vital artistic values into school curricula.
In 2009 Ms. Turban Maazel co-founded the Castleton Festival with her late husband, Maestro Lorin Maazel where she taught at the “Castleton Artists Training Seminar” (CATS), the Festival’s Young Artist Program. After Lorin Maazel’s passing in 2014, she took over as Artistic Director and CEO. She recently launched the Lorin Maazel Castleton Institute to perpetuate the Maestro’s Legacy and runs four ongoing series: Castleton in Residency, Castleton in Mentorship, Castleton in Conversation, Castleton in Performance.
In 2013 Ms. Turban Maazel created the course “Acting for Singers” for Rutgers University where she taught for nine years. She regularly holds masterclasses nationwide and abroad, as a guest faculty member of the International Vocal Arts Institute (IVAI – NYC and Montreal), the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt, the Atelier Lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal, and Highland Opera Studios, Ontario.
As CFO of Meadows at Castleton, she manages a Wedding & Vacation Resort on her farm estate situated on the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Part of the offerings are Yoga & Sound Healing Retreats as well as Music & Theatre Summer Camps for children.