According to the New York Times, next season will mark the end of an era for the New York Philharmonic that will see Lorin Maazel take his final bow as the orchestra’s music director and Stanley Drucker as the long-time principal clarinetist.

After seven years directing the country’s oldest orchestra, Maazel, now 77, who first conducted the Philharmonic at the age of 12, believes it is time to pass the baton, adding that he has experienced “summits and vistas and dimensions [conducting the Philharmonic] that I never thought had existed.”

As quoted in the Times, Maazel said; “A tradition has to be renewed and people must come along.” Succeeding Maazel will be the 40 year-old Alan Gilbert, currently the chief conductor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, which he has been “quietly building up” according to the Times.

In his final four programs of 2009, Maazel will conduct two of his own works including the aptly titled, “Farewells;” Mahler’s Symphony No. 8; Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2; and Britten’s “War Requiem,” which he feels is uniquely relevant given the state of today’s world affairs.

In addition to these works, Maazel will conduct Copland’s Clarinet Concerto—it will be the last time concertgoers will hear the solo clarinet of Stanley Drucker. Drucker has played the piece 64 times with the Philharmonic over the span of his 60-year career—one of the longest tenures in American Orchestral history. The legendary woodwind player will turn 79 next month. Drucker says that he has no regrets after a career that saw him play for most of the major conductors of the latter part of the century. “I’ve played all the great music written for the clarinet, some of it written for me,” adding that in post retirement, “I’m going to become a professional bum.”