with Cristian Măcelaru, Music Director

It’s telling that the first piece Cristian Măcelaru will conduct as music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra will be one written by a living composer: Abstractions (2016) by the British-born, American-based Anna Clyne. Clyne is one of the composers with whom Măcelaru has had the deepest working relationship, conducting her music everywhere from California to Cologne. He considers working with living composers one of the pillars of his career — a passion he traces back to studying composition from high school through college.

“I was a composition department’s dream student, because I was always willing to play in or conduct a new music recital,” Măcelaru says. “I don’t remember ever making a decision and saying, ‘Oh, I’m a new music expert.’ I’m just as interested in a brand-new composition as I am interested in doing a Brahms symphony.”

George Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F, which follows, is a personal favorite of Cristi’s, as well as an obvious nod to Măcelaru’s adopted homeland in the U.S. Through soloist Hélène Grimaud, it also nods to France, Măcelaru’s other home as the music director of the Orchestre National de France. (In a famous, if apocryphal story, Gershwin himself went to Paris hoping to study with Maurice Ravel. When Ravel learned how much money Gershwin had made the previous year, he said, “Perhaps it is I who should study with you!”) But Cristi also wanted to pair Clyne and Gershwin’s music because of a shared quality: In his view, both composers write music that sounds breezy but is, in truth, fiendishly difficult to execute.

Măcelaru has compared the pieces with trying to play a “perfect waltz” —much easier said than done. The CSO will nonetheless try their best when they finish with Richard Strauss’ Suite from Der Rosenkavalier. One of the masterpieces of German-language opera, the score is crammed with resplendent waltzes and sweeping melodies. Though a purely orchestral suite, its lyricism and cultural specificity pays homage to the German immigrant community whose singing tradition helped establish the May Festival Chorus — and, in turn, Music Hall and the CSO. “Someone 140 years ago made a very, very bold decision to say, ‘We should build this incredible concert hall here. That will be the legacy of who we are,’” Măcelaru says. Plus, the CSO is an opera orchestra, as the pit orchestra for the summer Cincinnati Opera. He adds, “a necessity has become an asset.”

—Hannah Edgar