Getting to Know Cristian Măcelaru, Part III
Music Director Designate Cristian Măcelaru will be introduced to CSO audiences in a series of articles in Fanfare Magazine. Follow along as the story of the CSO’s 14th Music Director unfolds.
by James M. Keller
Music Director Designate Cristian Măcelaru will be introduced to CSO audiences in a series of articles in Fanfare Magazine. Follow along as the story of the CSO’s 14th Music Director unfolds.
Parts I and II of Fanfare Magazine’s “Getting to Know Cristian Mӑcelaru” focused on Mӑcelaru himself — his life story and what led him to be one of the world’s most sought-after conductors. Part III gives the Cincinnati perspective, answering two important questions: 1) how is the Music Director selected? and 2) what made Mӑcelaru and the CSO fit together?
Selecting a Music Director
“Choosing the next Music Director is perhaps the most important decision this Orchestra will make in the next 10 years.” —Jonathan Martin
In June 2021, when the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO) announced that Music Director Louis Langrée would not seek to renew his contract beyond the conclusion of the 2023–24 season, then-President & CEO Jonathan Martin, who retired from the organization in February 2025, and the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors immediately began to form a search committee to find the Orchestra’s 14th Music Director.
Finding the next Music Director would be no easy task.
“Choosing the next Music Director is perhaps the most important decision this Orchestra will make in the next 10 years,” remarks Martin. “The Music Director will set the course of the CSO for the next decade or longer, and will be the catalyst for new artistic endeavors, developing the personnel of the Orchestra and interfacing with the Cincinnati community.”
The first step in finding the next Music Director was to identify leadership for the Music Director Search Committee. In consultation with the executive committee of the Board of Directors, Martin and then-Board Chair Rob McDonald asked Sheila Williams and Peter Landgren to co-chair the search committee.
The gravity and importance of finding Cincinnati’s next Music Director was not lost on the new co-chairs.
“In the beginning, it started with sheer terror,” reflects Sheila Williams, “because the task was just overwhelming. And then I decided, yes, I would do this.”
Williams is a native of Ohio and a celebrated author. Her first published book, Dancing on the Edge of the Roof, was the basis for the 2019 Netflix film Juanita. And Williams is no stranger to the world of music, having written the libretto to the opera Fierce, which received its world premiere in 2022 at Cincinnati Opera.
“Once I got my head around what I was being asked to do — to find Cincinnati’s next cultural ambassador, someone who will champion the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra — it was really a full circle moment for me,” reflects Peter Landgren.
Full circle?
Landgren has a deep connection to the CSO and to Cincinnati. As an undergraduate studying the Horn at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), Landgren began performing with the CSO in the middle of his sophomore year. He next played in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for 29 years under four different music directors and then set his sights on organizational leadership. He returned to Cincinnati as Dean of CCM, served as the University of Cincinnati’s interim provost, and most recently served as President of the University of Cincinnati Foundation.
“Peter and Sheila were both Board members at the time,” recalls Martin. “Peter had a unique skill set, having been an Orchestra member and an administrator, which made him a great choice as a leader in this process. Sheila had served on the search committee that found Louis Langrée, and Sheila possesses the inimitable ability to ensure that all voices are at the table and those voices are heard. With Peter and Sheila, we had the two best people to lead this search.”
With the co-chairs in place, the rest of the search committee was filled by Board members and musicians of the CSO. Five musicians to be more precise, which exceeds the stipulations in the Orchestra’s collective bargaining agreement.
“I feel beyond grateful to be part of the Music Director Search Committee,” says Elizabeth Freimuth, Principal Horn. “It is contractual for the Concertmaster, Stefani Matsuo, to sit on the committee, but the rest of the musicians were elected by our colleagues to represent them. That is a unique opportunity. We were not just asked to be on this committee based on our instrument or position in the Orchestra, but we were elected to it by our colleagues. We all have just been incredibly humble and grateful throughout this search.”
“We needed to articulate what it was we were looking for.” —Sheila Williams, co-chair of the Music Director Search Committee
The search for the 14th Music Director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra began by not answering the question of who, but by answering the question of what does the Orchestra need and want from its next leader.
“Long gone are the days when a maestro would just go to the front of the stage, conduct from the podium, and that was it,” remarks Freimuth. “The maestro made amazing music, everyone was impressed and the concert ended, and then you’d see them in another week. Now, it’s much more collaborative and the requirements are much, much more.”
Without question, the Orchestra needs a great conductor and a great artistic partner, but what else? What qualities does the Music Director of Cincinnati’s Orchestra need to possess?
“What a lot of people do not realize is that a music director is two jobs bundled into one,” states Martin. “There’s the principal conductor part of the job and the music director part. The CSO has to have a great conductor, but we need more. We need a person who understands the power of music to change lives, to enrich the community and who believes in their heart that this Orchestra is for the entire community.”
The search committee needed a touchstone to ensure every candidate was weighed against a standard set of criteria.
“We started with the CSO’s vision and mission, literally the center of the solar system,” remarks Landgren. “From there, the Search Committee built out a position profile that underwent countless iterations over many months. We began by articulating the musical and non-musical attributes we sought in the next CSO Music Director to allow the committee to align to the creative and human qualities we’re looking for in the CSO’s next leader.”
The position profile detailed the ideal candidate’s skills and characteristics, along with the requirements needed in the areas of leadership and inspiration, communication and collaboration, advocacy, personal responsibility, and creativity and vision. At the heart of each requirement was the CSO’s mission “to seek and share inspiration,” and its vision to “be the most relevant orchestra in America.”
But a position profile wasn’t the only thing provided to Music Director candidates. The CSO created a very detailed and transparent company profile that included things one might expect, like tour, recording and premiere information, but it also included detailed information on the CSO’s unique business model, an executive summary of every single program the CSO administers, detailed information about the City of Cincinnati and the CSO’s ongoing efforts to address digital content and innovation and advancements in diversity, equity and inclusion. The CSO wanted each candidate to know about Cincinnati’s Orchestra because it is unlike any other orchestra.
The thesis statement of the position profile is the Music Director’s mission “to create the optimum space for music to flourish and inspire within a framework of innovation and relevance.”
As the CSO prepared to search for its next Music Director, conductors all over the world prepared to vie for the job.
Mӑcelaru + CSO: A Match
“Cristian Măcelaru has got it all.” —Patrick Schleker, Principal Timpani,
member of the Music Director Search Committee
“Cristi was obviously interested in the CSO because he had done his homework. He knew the history of the CSO and our legacy, but he also knew about how our Orchestra had developed over the last few years and the various aspects of the entire organization,” comments Concertmaster Stefani Matsuo. “He was incredibly knowledgeable about the CSO, and I feel like, in some areas, he knew more than some of us on the search committee. From my perspective, this demonstrated that Cristi was equally as interested in becoming a partner with this organization as we were in him.”
Măcelaru’s knowledge of the CSO wasn’t by accident. He had done his research.
“An orchestra picks a music director just as much as a music director picks an orchestra,” says Mӑcelaru. When Mӑcelaru found out that the CSO was interested in him being part of the search for the CSO’s next Music Director, he and his wife Cheryl immediately went into research mode.
“I had been in Cincinnati, I had conducted the Orchestra, but a guest conductor’s role and the music director’s role are so different in the sense that the music director is connected and linked to the mission and vision of the organization,” notes Mӑcelaru. “What I discovered in my research was an incredible number of programs, ideas and work that the organization was doing that aligned more and more with the kind of ideas that I had for what an orchestra needs to represent in a community.”
That alignment between the CSO’s ideals and Mӑcelaru’s ideals didn’t go unnoticed by the search committee.
“Cristi has an intuitive sense of how an orchestra can build relevance in an American community,” remarks Martin. “He understands the power of classical music and orchestra music to bridge divides between differences. And he is authentically interested, almost obsessed with unlocking that asset in an orchestra.”
When Mӑcelaru came for his “interview” week in January 2024, his goal wasn’t to win the job that was “the cherry on top.” Instead the goal was to experience this Orchestra in real life and relate his research to the actual people of the organization.
“When you do research and you haven’t yet met the faces behind the research,” muses Mӑcelaru, “one’s mind starts to build a certain ideal.”
“Having seen all these things that were so well-thought-of and wonderfully conceived, I just assumed that everyone had lived several lives already,” remarked Mӑcelaru. “Then I arrived in Cincinnati and everybody that I met was young, hip, cool and wonderful. Of course, what the research I did could not portray was the warmth and the beautiful atmosphere that is created in the organization. And this was something that, of course, I knew from the stage, and it had always been there, but I didn’t have that experience with the behind-the-scenes team.”
Organizational culture is something that the CSO prizes and is part of its ongoing work of inclusion in the workplace. Organizational culture isn’t bottom up or top down. Everyone in the organization must adhere to its ideals; therefore, the CSO needed a new Music Director who could echo the culture and atmosphere the CSO worked so hard to create. The CSO found its match in Mӑcelaru.
“An important element of Cristi’s personality is how he listens to you and the way he responds to what you say,” says Freimuth. “It sounds very simple, but it’s actually a rare quality. And this quality is baked into Cristi’s personality.”
Search committee co-chair Sheila Williams reflects on a conversation she had with Mӑcelaru at a cocktail party.
“There were a few people in the room, food on tables, clinking glasses, but when Cristi and I were talking, he was completely focused on our conversation. He wasn’t looking over my shoulder to see who’s next. Or what’s next. Or what’s going on at the drinks table. He was focused on me. He was present in that conversation.” Williams pauses, thinking for a moment before continuing. “That intensity of focus, whether it’s on a personal level, or if it’s when he’s speaking with the principal viola, is important, because you know he’s talking to you and he’s focused on you.”
Mӑcelaru matched the CSO’s philosophies and culture, but what about his musicianship?
“The electricity, the snap-crackle of the music-making itself that reaches out and grabs you,” observes Martin. “If Cristi is a conduit between the audience and the orchestra and the orchestra and the composer, the audience is going to feel that connection. He is an exciting music-maker. I’ve heard him conduct a number of orchestras, and Cristi always has that sizzle. It’s like sticking your finger in the wall outlet.”
“Cristian Mӑcelaru has got it all. He has experience conducting the core repertoire with the Orchestre National de France and WDR Sinfonieorchester, and he has new music experience, which is critical for our Orchestra’s survival, with the Cabrillo Festival,” remarks Patrick Schleker, Principal Timpani and member of the search committee. “Also, Mӑcelaru values and understands the importance of music education and musical advocacy, which are the keys to any orchestra’s future. He’s really got everything we need.”
Fanfare Magazine had one final question for Jonathan Martin: How do you hope the CSO will be different in 10 years or so with Cristi at the helm?
“I want us to be able to look at ourselves collectively in the mirror and be able to truthfully say that we are the Orchestra for everybody.”
When President Jed Bartlet in Cristi’s favorite TV show, The West Wing, was ready for whatever lay ahead and wanted to spur his team on, Bartlet uttered his now immortal phrase, “What’s next?” The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra has the talent both on and off the stage, supporters who care deeply for the mission and vision of the organization, and a new era about to begin, so, “What’s next?”