Cristian Măcelaru will be the next music director of the Cincinnati Symphony. His five-year term starts with the 2024-25 season, but he will be Music Director Designate during the first year.
He's a good conductor, from what I've heard at Cabrillo. Note that he is occupied in various other places, but also he will be stepping down from one of his positions with the commencement of his Cincinnati appointment:
Măcelaru holds the titles of Artistic Director of the George Enescu Festival and Competition, Music Director of the Orchestre National de France, Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Interlochen Center for the Arts’ World Youth Symphony Orchestra, Music Director and Conductor of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music and Chief Conductor of the WDR Sinfonieorchester in Cologne, Germany, where he will serve through the 2024-25 season and continue as Artistic Partner for the 2025-26 season.
Read the whole press release on the orchestra's web site.
I've seen Cristian M. guest-conduct several times with the SLSO. To be honest, I'm not a fan. However, he's OK, and good enough. It's evident, IMHO, that the SLSO musicians like him, and that he seems to be a genuinely nice guy, a "plays well with others" fellow, kind of like a certain over-subscribed young Finn. Macelaru has appeared with the SLSO almost every season for a fair number of years now, so I thought that he might be on the back-burner list that every orchestra needs to maintain of possible future music directors. With his appointment to Cincinnati, he's now obviously off the SLSO's back-burner list. The Cincinnati situation may explain why he gave notice to the WDR Symphony Orchestra, although he still looks to keep his ONF post.
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