The conductor, composer, and music director Cristian Măcelaru has had a richly varied and enormously successful career since graduating from the Frost School of Music in 2003. He has conducted major orchestras across the United States and Europe; performed in the world's cultural capitals; and recorded multiple times on major labels, winning a GRAMMY for a Wynton Marsalis piece for the Philadelphia Orchestra, where he has been conductor-in-residence.
Most recently, Mӑcelaru was appointed music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO). He also conducted the Orchestre National de France, where he is musical director, to accompany the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in Paris.
However, the opportunities that Măcelaru found at the Frost School, as well as the ethos of working in multiple fields and the importance of real-world experience that he absorbed here, laid the foundation for his success and shaped his professional life.
"The fact that I had so many real live performance opportunities as violinist, conductor, and composer gave me the training to do what I do today," Măcelaru, 44, said recently. "My degree is in violin performance, but I had classes in conducting and composition. Anything I would write, they would perform. When I wanted to conduct, they would let me conduct. As a performer or conductor, you learn by doing. I received that."
Măcelaru starts his five-year term with the CSO in the 2024-25 season. He has conducted the 130-year-old orchestra, one of the country's leading classical symphonies, multiple times, forming a close relationship. "We have the same concept of what we want to achieve," he said. "It's a meeting of hearts and minds about the path forward." His appointment was national news, and the CSO's leadership welcomed him enthusiastically. "Cristian Măcelaru is an extraordinary musician, conductor, and community builder who understands the power of music to change lives," said President and CEO Jonathan Martin.
The youngest in a musical family of ten children from the diverse, historic city of Timișoara, Romania, Măcelaru came to the U.S. in 1997, at age 17, to study violin at Michigan's famed Interlochen Center For The Arts. He was seeking opportunities he couldn't find in Romania, then struggling to recover from the brutal communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu. "Romania was part of Europe in the same way that North Korea is part of Asia," Măcelaru said. His father could only give him $100 to start life in a new country.
At Interlochen, the young violinist met Glen Basham, a violin professor at the Frost School. Basham encouraged Măcelaru to consider the Frost School as a place that would foster his wide-ranging ambitions. "He understood my diverse interests in composing and conducting," Măcelaru said. "I did not want to go to a school to do only one thing." He auditioned during a welcoming visit to the Frost School, and was not only accepted, but given crucial scholarship and financial aid.
His years at the Frost School were packed with artistic opportunities. He became the youngest ever concertmaster with the Miami Symphony Orchestra, where he could also earn needed income. Being part of a small student body was an asset. "It forced me to be out there constantly," said Măcelaru, who also received master's and doctoral degrees from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. "Every time there was a school function, I performed. When the Naples Philharmonic came to do a concert, I played a solo. I went to China with my own violin concerto." When he talked with friends who'd gone to other, larger conservatories, he was struck by how his education contrasted with theirs. "We'd compare experiences, and I had played [multiple] times with orchestras, and they had not had one opportunity to do that."
Măcelaru is still connected to the Frost School. He was named a Distinguished Alumnus in 2016. He invited graduate conducting student Yun Xuan Cao to spend a week with him at the St. Louis Symphony last fall. Conducting master's student Harris Han Anderson will attend a masterclass with Măcelaru at the George Enescu Festival in Romania, where he is the artistic director, in September. In Cincinnati, Mӑcelaru will work with Kevin Day, a doctoral student in composition at the Frost School, who's been commissioned to compose the first opera for the Cincinnati Opera's (which is accompanied by the CSO) Black Opera Project.
The Romanian musician is also passionate about areas that align with the Frost School's values: the importance of music education, presenting new music and making classical music accessible and appealing to new and expanded audiences. He is the artistic director of the Interlochen Center for the Arts World Youth Symphony Orchestra. He has commissioned premieres from 52 composers and is the music director and conductor of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, which is devoted to new music and where he mentors young musicians.
"My whole philosophy about the performing arts, where music is my language, is it needs to continue being a catalyst to bring people together," Măcelaru said. "We have to find ways to bring people in, to offer this experience where they can be blown away."
