Louis Langrée
The French conductor Louis Langrée has been Music Director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra since 2013 and Music Director of the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center since 2003.
A regular presence in New York since his 1998 debut, Langrée has conducted more than 250 performances and concerts at Lincoln Center, at the Mostly Mozart Festival, the Metropolitan Opera, and the New York Philharmonic; he has also taught masterclasses at the Juilliard School. Langrée has raised the artistic profile and repertoire of the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra from Lully to contemporary music, including Bernstein’s Mass, the world premiere of Magnus Lindberg’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with Lisa Batiashvili, and New York premieres of Osvaldo Golijov’s Azul with Alisa Weilerstein and David Lang’s man made with Sō Percussion.
An advocate for the music of our time, Langrée has conducted world premieres by Julia Adolphe, Daníel Bjarnason, Anna Clyne, Jonathan Bailey Holland, David Lang, Julia Wolfe, Nico Muhly, André Previn, Caroline Shaw, and Christopher Rouse.
In the 21-22 season he will make his debuts with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington. He will also return to conduct concerts with the Konzerthausochester Berlin, Philadelphia Orchestra, Swedish Chamber Orchestra, São Paulo State Symphony, Orchestre National de Lille, and at Opéra Comique to conduct Thomas’ Hamlet. Throughout the Coronavirus pandemic, Louis Langrée’s commitment to the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra has been fundamental to shaping their online activities, presenting regular streamed concerts from Cincinnati Music Hall.
Louis has guest conducted the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, London 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 Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, and at festivals including Glyndebourne, Aix-en-Provence, BBC Proms, Edinburgh International, the Hong Kong Arts Festival, Wiener Festwochen, Salzburg Mozartwoche and Whitsun.
Among his recent recordings, the DVD of Thomas’ Hamlet, filmed at the Opéra Comique in Paris with the Orchestre des Champs-Elysées, won the “Best Recording of the Year” Award at the International Opera Awards, “Best Video Performance” at the International Classical Music Awards, the Grand Prix de l’Académie Charles Cros, Caecilia Prize, and Diapason d’Or of the Year. His two last CD’s with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra were both nominated for "Best Orchestral Performance" at the Grammy Awards.
He 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 an Honorary Member of the Confrérie Saint-Étienne d’Alsace, an Alsatian wine-makers’ brotherhood dating back to the 14th century.
Louis Langrée is a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur and Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.
