Paavo Järvi, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

Among U.S. ensembles the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra stands fifth in age and commands widespread respect for its artistic stature. Performing also under the Cincinnati Pops name, the orchestra owes its profile to a succession of distinguished European and American leaders. Its documented legacy on record reaches back to the LP period and extends into the present decade, most recently with the 2024 release American Dreams.

Cincinnati’s early orchestral life reflected the city’s strong German immigrant heritage. A Cincinnati Orchestra had already appeared by 1872; in 1895 the Cincinnati Orchestra Association enlarged that ensemble to forty-eight musicians and established the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under founding music director Frank Van der Stucken. One year later the group took up residence at Music Hall in the heart of the Over-the-Rhine district, where it has remained except for the years 1911–1936. Brief dissolution followed labor disputes in the early twentieth century; upon reconstitution Leopold Stokowski assumed his first principal post, enlarging the roster to seventy-five players and shaping its characteristic sonority before departing after three seasons. His successors included Ernst Kunwald, the violinist-composer-conductor Eugène Ysaÿe, Fritz Reiner, and Eugene Goossens, whose tenure ran from 1933 to 1947. Thor Johnson then led the orchestra from 1947 to 1958, overseeing some of the earliest stereo sessions ever made with the ensemble.

The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra introduced Copland’s A Lincoln Portrait and Fanfare for the Common Man to the world and gave the American premieres of numerous scores by Mahler, Richard Strauss, and Shostakovich. Subsequent music directors have been Max Rudolf (1958–1970), Thomas Schippers (1970–1977), Michael Gielen (1980–1986), Jesús López-Cobos (1986–2001), Paavo Järvi (2001–2011), and Louis Langrée (2013–2024). The Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, drawn from the same personnel, was launched in 1977 and long directed by Erich Kunzel, who also guided the parent ensemble on disc, among them the early digital Tchaikovsky: 1812 issued in 1979. Through the late 2000s the orchestra issued many of its recordings on the Telarc label; in 2010 it established its own CSO Media imprint, later distributing selected projects under the Fanfare Cincinnati banner. Under Langrée the orchestra released American Dreams in 2024. Cristian Măcelaru is scheduled to assume the music directorship in the fall of 2025.