Louis Langrée
About this Artist
French conductor Louis Langrée became Director of the Théâtre national de l’Opéra-Comique in November 2021, named by the president of France, Emmanuel Macron. He has been Music Director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra since 2013 and was Music Director of the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center from 2003 to 2023.
In the 2023/24 season, Langrée rounds off 10 successful years as Music Director of the Cincinnati Symphony, where he conducts Thomas’ opera Hamlet as well as new works by Jonathan Bailey Holland, Bryce Dessner (U.S. premiere), and Anthony Davis (world premiere), among others. Langrée will continue as Director at l’Opera-Comique with a production of Pulcinella and L’Heure espagnole, as well as bringing l’Opera-Comique to the Edinburgh Festival. Langrée also returns to the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall.
A regular presence in New York since his 1998 debut, Langrée has conducted about 250 performances and concerts at Lincoln Center, including the Mostly Mozart Festival, the Metropolitan Opera, and the New York Philharmonic. Guest-conductor appearances include 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 leading opera houses including 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.
An advocate for the music of our time, Langrée has conducted world premieres by Daníel Bjarnason, Julia Adolphe, Guillaume Connesson, Anna Clyne, Jonathan Bailey Holland, David Lang, Julia Wolfe, Nico Muhly, André Previn, Caroline Shaw, and Christopher Rouse.
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, the Caecilia Prize, and Diapason d’Or of the Year. His two last CDs with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra were nominated for Best Orchestral Performance at the Grammy Awards.
Previous music-director roles include 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, Langrée is an Honorary Member of the Confrérie Saint-Étienne d’Alsace, an Alsatian winemakers’ brotherhood dating back to the 14th century. Louis Langrée is a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur and an Officier des Arts et des Lettres.