Acclaimed American conductor Lorin Maazel has died, after a recent battle with declining health.

American conductor Lorin Maazel has died at the age of 84, as a result of complications following a bout of pneumonia.

Maazel was born in France on March 6, 1930, to a musical family. His father Lincoln was a musician and actor and his mother Marion founded the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra. When his family relocated to the United States, Maazel began taking conducting lessons with Vladimir Bakaleinikov. In the following months, Maazel made his conducting and violin debut, and toured the country at the helm of America’s major orchestras.

As a child prodigy, Mazeel gathered an impressive resume, but humbly claimed: “the truth is that talent always develops early in any successful musician. The difference is that most children are not asked to perform on the level that I performed and, of those who were publicly exhibited, I was lucky not to be the stereotypical model of the exploited child forced to perform day after day until he is drained, loses all contact with his peers and ends up a psychological wreck aged 20…I didn’t sacrifice my childhood and so when...