Eric Maul was 3, maybe 4 years old, when a neighbor brought over a pair of ruby slippers just like the ones in “The Wizard of Oz.”

Maul was enchanted. He slipped them on, threw a blanket over his head to mimic long hair and marched around the house, like a pint-sized Dorothy. Three decades later, he still loved dressing up and performing — though his blanket hair became long, natural locks that made people jealous.

Maul, who grew up in Millersville and performed throughout Baltimore, was an exceptional flutist. He was a cherished son and brother and a light in every room he walked into, family said. He died unexpectedly on Sept. 12 at his home in Provincetown, Massachusetts, a place he’d lived and loved for five years. He was 33. The cause of death is not yet known.

Maul was born on Oct. 24, 1990, to Gary Maul and Cinda Ascione (or ‘Gar-Bear’ and ‘Cinda Lue,’ as Maul called them). He had an older brother, Bryan Maul, who helped pick his sibling’s name — Ascione loved the name Eric, while Gary Maul loved Christopher, so they left it up to Bryan Maul to pick the order, Ascione said.

Maul was an easy baby, always smiling and babbling, his mother said. He was an easy child, too, often starting his homework without anyone telling him. The consummate performer, he watched shows or movies and recited the lines and songs back to his family later, Ascione said.

Maul was “always the personality that people wanted to talk to and be around,” his brother said. Growing up, people would often refer to Bryan Maul as “Eric’s brother,” he said.

As kids, the brothers shared similar interests, which prompted as many fights as bonding moments. They loved playing video games, especially Super Smash Bros, and Maul “was a demon playing Princess Peach,” his brother said.

Ascione wanted to inspire a love of music in her children. Her favorite instrument was the French horn, which she desperately wanted Maul to play — but he had other plans. He instead fell in love with the flute.

“I loved flute players — I thought they were so elegant — and the sound as well,” Maul said in a 2021 profile in the Provincetown Independent.

He took private lessons in the fourth grade and quickly impressed his teachers. He played in school bands and the Greater Baltimore Youth Orchestra. While in high school, he started taking classes at the Peabody Institute at the Johns Hopkins University. He would go on to attend college there and train under Marina Piccinini, a world-renowned flutist from Italy.

He graduated in 2013 and pursued his master’s degree at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston while also working for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He graduated in 2015. Three days before his master’s recital, Maul was diagnosed with HIV.

Maul briefly returned to the Peabody Institute to start a doctoral program, but after a year, he told his mother, “I can’t do it anymore. I’ve got to stop for a little while.” The HIV diagnosis had shaken him, and the new program was highly competitive. He wasn’t enjoying music anymore.

“Musicians are always very positive — ‘Everything’s fine! Everything’s fine!’ — but what I went through was highly traumatizing, and I didn’t realize it until later,” Maul told the Independent.

He moved back up to Boston and took a break from playing, with the exception of his grandmother’s funeral in 2017. In 2019, he moved to Provincetown, a place he’d heard had a large gay community.

“He really kind of fell in love with the place in a serious way,” Bryan Maul said.

Maul quickly became part of the fabric of the town. He bartended during the summers and walked dogs to pay rent. He played the flute at Provincetown United Methodist Church. When Bryan Maul and his wife, Taylor, visited Provincetown after his death, they immediately understood why Maul loved it so much.

Maul would often chat with his brother and sister-in-law as he walked dogs in Provincetown, though their calls were almost always interrupted when Maul inevitably ran into someone he knew and struck up a conversation.

Maul aimed “to create a space for queer classical music” in Provincetown, he told the Independent. There, he started performing regularly again. During the pandemic, he posted videos of himself playing for a series called Flutin’ ‘n’ Tootin’. He also rediscovered his love for theater. In 2022, he played Alexis in a local drag adaptation of “Schitt’s Creek” — ‘Schartt$ Creek: Honeymoon in Ptown’.

“Basically all of his hobbies, and all of his favorite things, were just being on stage,” Taylor Maul said. “He was made for it, whether it was the flute or being in a drag show like this. It was what he loved and what he was made to do.”

Maul was full of life and laughter, and he would never turn away someone in need, family said. This was especially true as Maul embarked on a sobriety journey in recent years.

Sometimes his mother joked that Maul should have become a therapist: “I’d get upset about something, and he’d say, ‘Mom, don’t look at it this way,’ and he talked me down,” Ascione said. “He was very good at picking up on things [and] helping people see things a different way.”

A private celebration of life is scheduled in Maul’s native Maryland for early November, family said.

A public service for Maul was held in Provincetown earlier this month. As the ceremony came to a close, attendees watched a video of Maul doing what he did best — playing the flute, beautifully, to one of his favorite songs, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”