Lew Smoley, a pillar of the Mahler community, passed away on March 19, 2026 at the age of 82. Lew served as President of the Gustav Mahler Society of New York for many years, supporting the many activities of that group and serving as its spiritual mentor. Lew had a deep knowledge of Mahler’s life and works and a most engaging way of presenting his thinking. He combined his enormous collection of recordings and vast knowledge of the works to produce a Listening Guide for the symphonies, now preserved on the website of Mahler Foundation. But this was only a small part of his work on bringing classical music to everyone through his widely-known website and podcast: classicalpodcasts.com, “a classical music collection that includes over 100,000 recordings of more than 50,000 different pieces of music from every corner of the globe.” Lew’s never-ending curiosity about Mahler, his love of the music and his admiration for the man touched every Mahlerian he knew. He was a presence that will be sorely missed.