“Otto-Werner Mueller, 89, an old-world maestro whose teaching technique and formidable mien inspired reverence—and no small measure of fear—in generations of conductors and orchestral players, died Thursday evening, Feb. 25, at home in Charlotte, N.C.,” writes Peter Dobrin in Sunday’s (2/28) Philadelphia Inquirer. “Mueller was head of the conducting department at the Curtis Institute of Music from 1986 until his retirement in 2013, and was also a professor at the Juilliard and Yale schools of music. Among his students were New York Philharmonic music director Alan Gilbert and former Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra music director Paavo Järvi…. Born in 1926 in Bensheim, Germany,” Mueller held posts at Radio Stuttgart and the Heidelberg Theater and after emigrating to Canada in 1951 taught at the Montreal Conservatory and worked at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. “He was part of a generation of European-trained conducting pedagogues [in] the United States [including] Charles Bruck … at the Hartt School, and Frederik Prausnitz at Juilliard and the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University…. Gustav Meier, who had been at the University of Michigan and recently retired from Peabody, remains…. Memorials in Philadelphia and New York are being planned.” He leaves his wife, Virginia Allen, and three sons.
Posted February 29, 2016
