Cristian Măcelaru
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Cristian Măcelaru is one of the leading conductors of his generation. Since the 2019/20 season he has been Chief Conductor of the WDR Symphony Orchestra, and since 2020/21 Music Director of the Orchestre National de France. He also leads the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in California and serves as Artistic Director of the George Enescu Festival. In the 2024/25 season he will become Music Director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
As a guest conductor, he appears with many of the world’s top orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, the Boston and Chicago Symphony Orchestras, The Philadelphia Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, the Vienna Symphony, and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig.
Born in Timișoara in 1980, he remains closely connected to Romania, performing regularly at the Opera Națională București and the Banatul Philharmonic.
Măcelaru is deeply committed to music education and broadening access to classical music. Since 2020 he has led the World Youth Symphony Orchestra, and as Artistic Director of the George Enescu Festival he has developed new concert formats for children and collaborations with social organizations. He also advocates strongly for contemporary music as an essential part of modern culture.
He is a regular contributor to WDR 3 and shares his insights into orchestral music in the WDR Symphony Orchestra’s video series Kurz und Klassik.
