Louis Langrée is the Music Director Laureate of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. He continues as Director of Théâtre national de l’Opéra-Comique in Paris, an appointment that began in November 2021. Langrée ended his 20-year tenure as Music Director of the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center in the summer of 2023. Known for imaginative programming, Langrée began his Cincinnati tenure with Jennifer Higdon’s On a Wire with Eighth Blackbird; Copland’s A Lincoln Portrait, narrated by Dr. Maya Angelou; and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Two of his Cincinnati recordings were Grammy-nominated for Best Orchestral Performance: Transatlantic, with works by Varèse, Gershwin, and Stravinsky; and Concertos for Orchestra, featuring world premieres by Sebastian Currier, Thierry Escaich, and Zhou Tian. His Pelléas et Mélisande trilogy contrasted settings by Fauré, Debussy, and Schoenberg. A multi-season Beethoven [R]evolution cycle has paired the symphonies with world premieres and 20th-century masterworks, as well as recreation of the legendary 1808 Akademie. During the COVID pandemic, Langrée was a catalyst for the Orchestra’s return to the stage in the fall of 2020 with a series of digitally streamed concerts, and then in January 2021 welcoming in-person audiences to Music Hall.

Between the start of his tenure and the conclusion of the CSO’s 2023–24 season, Langrée and the CSO will have commissioned 45 new orchestral works and he will have conducted 31 premieres from a wide range of composers, including Julia Adolphe, Daníel Bjarnason, Jennifer Higdon, Jonathan Bailey Holland, Kinds of Kings, David Lang, Missy Mazzoli, Nico Muhly, André Previn, Caroline Shaw, Julia Wolfe, and the world premiere of Christopher Rouse’s Symphony No. 6, his final opus. Langrée and the Orchestra also commissioned 20 composers to write solo instrument fanfares for CSO musicians during the COVID pandemic, including Michael Abels, Marcos Balter, Peter Boyer, Courtney Bryan, Bryce Dessner, Ted Hearne, Tyshawn Sorey, Georgia Stitt and Du Yun, whose new works were premiered on the Orchestra’s website.

To date, Langrée has appointed 28 of the Orchestra’s musicians, including hiring Stefani Matsuo as the Orchestra’s first female Concertmaster. Other appointments include Associate Principal Percussion, Associate Principal Second Violin, First Assistant Concertmaster, Assistant Principal Horn, Principal Tuba, Principal Clarinet, Second/Assistant Principal Trombone, Principal Bassoon, Second Flute, Second Oboe, three section violists, two section violins, and a section cellist. In the coming season, there will be auditions for Associate Principal Timpani and section percussion, Associate Concertmaster, Associate Principal Flute, Piccolo, and Section Bass. Langrée has also worked closely with the CSO/CCM Diversity Fellows, mentoring them individually and welcoming them to perform within the Orchestra.

A regular presence at Lincoln Center since his 1998 debut, Langrée has conducted more than 200 performances and concerts at the Mostly Mozart Festival, Metropolitan Opera, New York Philharmonic, and on the Great Performers series, and has taught masterclasses at the Juilliard School. Langrée has raised the artistic profile and repertoire of the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra well beyond the classical period, from Lully to contemporary music. Highlights include Bernstein’s MASS, the world premiere of Magnus Lindberg’s first violin concerto with Lisa Batiashvili, and New York premieres of Osvaldo Golijov’s Azul with Alisa Weilerstein and David Lang’s man made with Sō Percussion.

He has guest conducted the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, LA Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, NHK Symphony, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre de Paris, and Leipzig Gewandhaus, as well as Orchestre des Champs-Elysées, Freiburg Baroque and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. In addition to the Met, he frequently conducts at the leading opera houses, including the Vienna Staatsoper, Teatro alla Scala, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Bavarian Staatsoper, and at festivals including Glyndebourne, Aix-en-Provence, BBC Proms, Edinburgh International, and the Hong Kong Arts Festival.

Langrée was previously music director of the Orchestre de Picardie, Opéra National de Lyon, Glyndebourne Touring Opera, Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, and chief conductor of the Camerata Salzburg. A native of Alsace, France, he is a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur and Officier des Arts et des Lettres, and he is an Honorary Member of the Confrérie Saint-Étienne d’Alsace, an Alsatian wine-makers’ brotherhood dating back to the 14th century.