History | CSO

Learn more about the rich and storied histories of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and its 13 Music Directors, the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, and the National Historic Landmark Music Hall.
View a timeline in honor of the CSO's 125th Anniversary in the 2019/20 season.

Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, which also performs as the Cincinnati Pops, celebrated its 125th anniversary in the 2019-20 season. One of America’s finest and most versatile ensembles, the internationally acclaimed CSO attracts the best musicians, artists and conductors from around the world to Cincinnati. With new commissions and groundbreaking initiatives like LUMENOCITY, the MusicNOW Festival collaboration, and CSO Proof, the Orchestra is committed to being a place of experimentation.

Louis Langrée began his tenure as the CSO's 13th Music Director in the 2013-14 season with a celebrated program The New York Times said “deftly combined nods to the orchestra's history, the city's musical life and new music.” Over the Orchestra's 126-year history, it has also been led by Leopold Stokowski, Eugène Ysaÿe, Fritz Reiner, Eugene Goossens, Max Rudolf, Thomas Schippers, Jesús López Cobos, and Paavo Järvi, among others.

A champion of new music, the Orchestra has given American premieres of works by such composers as Debussy, Ravel, Mahler and Bartók and has commissioned works that have since become mainstays of the classical repertoire, including Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man. The CSO was the first orchestra to be broadcast to a national radio audience (1921) and the third to record (1917). The Orchestra continues to commission new works and to program an impressive array of music. In recent years, the CSO has performed the world premieres by Nico Muhly, David Lang, Caroline Shaw and Daniel Bjarnason as part of the groundbreaking collaboration with the MusicNOW Festival, as well world premieres from André Previn, Gunther Schuller, Michael Fiday, T. J. Cole, Jonathan Bailey Holland and Kristin Kuster.

The CSO was the first American orchestra to make a world tour sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and continues to tour domestically and internationally, most recently to Asia in March 2017 and a celebrated three-week European tour in August and September 2017 that included debuts at the BBC Proms, Edinburgh International Festival and the Quincena Musical de San Sebastián. The CSO has performed at New York's Carnegie Hall 48 times since its debut there in 1917, most recently to rave reviews in May of 2014. In January of 2016, the Orchestra performed at New York’s Lincoln Center as part of the invitational Great Performers series.

The CSO is Cincinnati's own and committed to enhancing and expanding music education for the children of Greater Cincinnati and works to bring music education, in its many different forms, to as broad a public as possible. Education and outreach programs currently serve more than 80,000 individuals annually.

In 2015, the Orchestra announced the CSO/CCM Diversity Fellowship, a nationally recognized program in partnership with the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Born out of a mutual desire to make American orchestras more inclusive, this groundbreaking, two-year fellowship program just graduated its fifth class and welcomes its sixth class of four post-graduate fellows to Cincinnati in the fall of 2021.

CSO Music Directors

: On January 17, 1895 Frank Van der Stucken conducted the first concert of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. The Cincinnati Orchestra Association Company, founded by 15 enthusiastic women under the presidency of Mrs. William Howard Taft, sponsored nine concerts by the 48-member orchestra in the first season. Concerts that season and the next were presented at Pike's Opera House, and in 1896 the orchestra, which then numbered 60, moved to Music Hall.

Frank Van der Stucken, born in Texas of Belgian-German parentage, continued as music director until 1907. During the orchestra's exciting early years, Richard Strauss was a guest conductor, Edward MacDowell performed his own piano concerto, and the orchestra presented the American premiere of Mahler's Symphony No. 5.
: Financial and labor difficulties caused the orchestra to disband in 1907. But the Orchestra Association campaigned to raise funds and, in 1909, largely through the efforts of Mrs. Charles P. Taft, engaged Leopold Stokowski to come as director of a handpicked orchestra of 77 men. During his three-year tenure the orchestra hosted Busoni and Rachmaninoff and presented its first "popular concerts."
: In 1911 the orchestra moved to the new Emery Auditorium. In 1912 Ernst Kunwald, former conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, arrived. Under his directorship the CSO made its first recording for Columbia in 1917.
: Eugène Ysaÿe, the legendary Belgian violin virtuoso, was music director from 1918 to 1922, and the orchestra flourished under his leadership.
: During his nine years as music director, from 1922 to 1931, Fritz Reiner presented the American premieres of works by Ravel, Debussy, and Respighi. He introduced Béla Bartók to Cincinnati, leading this country's premiere of Bartók's Piano Concerto No. 1, with the composer as soloist.
: Eugene Goossens, who was later knighted by Queen Elizabeth, succeeded Reiner in 1931. With a British flair for conducting large, massed choral and instrumental works, he led many brilliant May Festival performances and conducted the CSO in fully-staged opera and ballet performances. By 1936 the orchestra had outgrown Emery Auditorium and returned to Music Hall. Maestro Goossens is also well known for having invited various composers to submit Fanfares to be performed at subscription concerts, including the beloved Fanfare for the Common Man by Aaron Copland.
: American-born and -trained Thor Johnson became music director in 1947. During his 11 years in Cincinnati he conducted the premieres of 120 American and European works, half of which he commissioned.
: Johnson was succeeded in 1958 by Max Rudolf, former conductor of the Metropolitan Opera, who led the CSO on a memorable 10-week world tour in 1966 (under the auspices of the United States Department of State) and a four-week European tour in 1969. In 1965 Erich Kunzel (then assistant conductor) took charge of the Eight O'Clock Pops concerts, and in 1967 the Concerts in the Parks were initiated. A beautifully refurbished Music Hall provided the setting for the orchestra's 75th anniversary celebration during the 1969-70 season.
: In 1970 the CSO welcomed Thomas Schippers as music director. His broad background of experience included the directorship of the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, as well as engagements with the opera houses of La Scala, Vienna, Bayreuth, and the Metropolitan Opera, and the philharmonics of New York, London, Israel, and Berlin. Until his untimely death in 1977, he brought glamour as well as a high standard of excellence to the orchestra.
: From 1978 to 1980 Walter Susskind served as music advisor to the orchestra, drawing upon his vast experience as music director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Aspen Festival, and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, and as guest conductor of many of the world's great orchestras.
: Michael Gielen was named CSO music director in September 1980. His artistic leadership through six seasons continued to assure the CSO's prominence on a national and international level. Gielen and the CSO introduced a number of important world, American, and CSO premieres both in Cincinnati and on tour, including appearances at Carnegie Hall.

An exciting new dimension was added to the orchestra in 1984, with the opening of Riverbend Music Center-officially The Hulbert Taft, Jr. Center for the Performing Arts, J. Ralph Corbett Pavilion. Riverbend, located on the banks of the Ohio River, has attracted national attention for its post-modernist design by architect Michael Graves.
: Appointed Music Director of the CSO in 1986, Jesús López Cobos led the orchestra into a new era of international acclaim. He retired from the orchestra in August 2001 after 15 seasons, the longest tenure of any Music Director in the history of the CSO. He became Music Director Emeritus of the CSO in September 2001. Under his leadership, the orchestra enjoyed critical and artistic praise for its live performances and recordings, as well as tour appearances throughout the United States. He led the orchestra in a highly praised 20-city European tour in 1995 (the orchestra’s first since 1969) in celebration of the orchestra’s centennial season. Under his direction the orchestra also appeared at the prestigious Casals Festival in 1998. During the 2000–2001 season he again led the orchestra to Europe for concerts in his native Spain and in Poland and Germany. Also under his leadership, the orchestra’s first national telecast appeared in 1997 on PBS-TV, featuring guest pianist Alicia de Larrocha and the music of Ravel, Dvořák and Falla.
: The Estonian-born Paavo Järvi began his tenure with the CSO in September 2001. Under his direction, the CSO toured throughout North America, Europe and Japan, performed nationally televised concerts, and recorded an extensive discography. He concluded his highly successful tenure as the Orchestra’s 12th Music Director in May 2011, and is currently the CSO's Honorary Conductor.
: The CSO named Louis Langrée as Music Director starting in the Orchestra’s 2013-14 season. Mr. Langrée, an acclaimed conductor who has led riveting performances on five continents, is also Music Director of the prestigious Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center in New York and Chief Conductor of the Camerata Salzburg. During his tenure, Mr. Langrée has introduced groundbreaking new initiatives such as LUMENOCITY®, One City, One Symphony and a collaboration with the MusicNOW Festival.

Read more about Louis Langrée

Cincinnati Pops Orchestra

The Cincinnati Pops, which also performs as the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, presents a diverse array of musical styles, all bathed in the world-renowned “Cincinnati Sound.” The Pops was officially founded in 1977 with the late Erich Kunzel as Conductor, and just since 1980, the Orchestra has sold ten million recordings around the globe. Conductor John Morris Russell has led the Pops since 2011. (Learn more about John Morris Russell.)

The growing list of celebrated artists who have collaborated with the Pops include Ella Fitzgerald, Frederica von Stade, Doc Severinsen, Henry Mancini, Aretha Franklin, Mel Tormé, Kristin Chenoweth, Jennifer Holliday, Vanessa Williams, Dave Brubeck, Audra McDonald, The Temptations, John Williams, Idina Menzel, Smokey Robinson, Rosemary Clooney, Mandy Patinkin, Arturo Sandoval, Peter Frampton, Boyz II Men, Bernadette Peters, Lea Salonga, Rhiannon Giddens, Ben Folds, Rosanne Cash, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

The Pops tours nationally and internationally, most recently in Shanghai and Taiwan for acclaimed performances in March 2017 and Florida for Holiday season performances in December 2014. The Pops traveled to Beijing as part of the Opening Festivities of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, and in 2005, the Pops completed a historical tour to China and Singapore performing in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. The Cincinnati Pops was the first U.S. Pops orchestra to perform in China, and also has appeared to enthusiastic audiences in New York’s Carnegie Hall, in Washington D.C., and Japan.

An estimated 30 million people have viewed national telecasts of the Cincinnati Pops on PBS, and the Orchestra has more than 100 available recordings, 55 of which have appeared on the Billboard charts, a record unmatched by any other orchestra. The Pops’ Copland: Music of America won a Grammy in 1997, and four other Pops recordings have been nominated for Grammy Awards.

In 2012, the Pops released its first recording under John Morris Russell, Home for the Holidays, on the Orchestra’s own Fanfare Cincinnati label. Subsequent recordings Superheroes! and Carnival of the Animals reached #8 and #15, respectively, on the Billboard charts. The most recent Pops release, American Originals, received national critical and widespread acclaim for its reimagining of the Stephen Foster songbook and American Originals: 1918, which explores, celebrates and reimagines American music of the World War I era. In the spring of 2016, the Pops unveiled American Soundscapes, an online video series that features Pops performances captured live. It has already reached nearly half a million viewers around the world.

Music Hall

For a history of Music Hall 1878 to present, visit the website of the Friends of Music Hall.

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Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

CSO Music Directors

Cincinnati Pops Orchestra

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