2022-2023 Season Announcement Release

Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops

Announce 2022-2023 Season, Marking a Full Return to

Pre-Pandemic Activity

Music Director Louis Langrée Conducts World Premieres by Samuel Adams and Courtney Bryan and U.S. Premieres by Daníel Bjarnason and Mark Simpson; Reprises Christopher Rouse’s Sixth Symphony for a Recording; Leads Concert-Staged Peer Gynt

Creative Partner Matthias Pintscher Conducts Mahler’s Seventh Symphony and Filmmaker-Composer Collaborations for CSO Proof

Pops Conductor John Morris Russell Conducts a Centennial Anniversary Tribute to **Judy Garland featuring Michael Feinstein; Ragtime in Concert; Hear Me Roar: A Celebration of Women in Song; and Holiday Pops with the Annie Moses Band**

Pops Principal Guest Conductor Damon Gupton Conducts New Year’s Eve: Billie Holiday Songbook with Quiana Lynell and an All-Tchaikovsky Spectacular

**Film with Live Orchestra Events Include Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, STAR WARS: The Force Awakens; and Marvel Studios’ Black Panther with percussionist Massamba Diop**

Young People’s Concerts, Chamber Players and Lollipops Make Their Full-Season, In-Person Returns to Music Hall

Free Digital Livestreams Continue to Expand Orchestra’s Global Reach

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CINCINNATI, OH (February 22, 2022)— The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO) and Cincinnati Pops Orchestra have unveiled details of the 2022-2023 season, featuring an extensive line-up of programs and events and marking a full return to pre-pandemic activity. The CSO and Pops have scheduled a total of 91 performances, which include CSO and Pops subscription programs, special events, CSO Proof, Young People’s Concerts, Lollipops, Classical Roots, Chamber Players, Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra (CSYO) concerts, and the annual side-by-side concert with the CSYO and CSO. Additionally, the CSO and Pops will present free digital livestreams of select performances throughout the season, as part of a continuing commitment to providing broad access to concerts to viewers in Cincinnati and around the globe.

“The 2022-2023 season represents a high point for our organization after nearly two years of facing the challenges of the pandemic,” said CSO President and Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Martin. “During that time, we leaned into innovation and flexed our creativity in new ways, as evidenced by the creation of a new digital innovation department; a renewed organization-wide commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion; and a new labor agreement with our musicians, which significantly altered work rules to maximize flexibility and efficiency in scheduling. The new season, one of the largest and most diverse in our Orchestra’s history, is a reflection of our artistic leadership and made possible by the steadfast work of our musicians and staff, the guidance of our Board of Directors, and the generosity of our community.”

CINCINNATI SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

The 2022-2023 season marks the penultimate season of Louis Langrée’s tenure as Music Director of the CSO. Opening with Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection,” Langrée will lead the CSO and the May Festival Chorus, joined by mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor and soprano Joélle Harvey, in an epic journey from darkness to light in the Orchestra’s largest production since its 125^th anniversary season.

Continuing the Orchestra’s legacy of commissioning new works, Langrée will conduct the CSO in ten of 19 subscription programs, including the world premiere of Samuel Adams’ Variations; the world premiere of Courtney Bryan’s Piano Concerto, with Bryan as soloist; the U.S. premiere of a piece by Daníel Bjarnason, part of a new multi-year co-commission project; and the U.S. premiere of Mark Simpson’s Piano Concerto featuring Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson. Between the start of his tenure as Music Director in 2013 and the conclusion of the 2022-2023 season, Langrée and the CSO will have contributed 42 commissions, including 32 world premieres, to the symphonic canon.

“Commissioning new works is a part of our DNA,” said Langrée. “It represents one of our greatest responsibilities to commission and perform new music. Collaborations with living composers help us to listen with open ears and fresh minds.”

In the new season, Christopher Rouse’s Symphony No. 6, which received its world premiere performance by Langrée and the CSO in 2019, will be performed again and recorded for commercial release. Co-commissions this season will include The Observatory by Caroline Shaw on a program with Holst’s The Planets and a saxophone concerto by Billy Childs, featuring saxophonist Steven Banks.

The Orchestra’s roster of artists and conductors will be as expansive and diverse as its programs. Making their debuts with the CSO are Steven Banks (saxophone), Courtney Bryan (piano), Elim Chan (conductor), Kevin John Edusei (conductor), Sterling Elliott (cello), Randall Goosby (violin), Víkingur Ólafsson (piano), Anna Rakitina (conductor), Thomas Søndergård (conductor), Dalia Stasevska (conductor), and Ramón Tebar (conductor).

The list of esteemed guest artists includes returns by Behzod Abduraimov (piano), Khatia Buniatishvili (piano), Michelle Cann (piano), Michael Francis (conductor), Hélène Grimaud (piano), Giancarlo Guerrero (conductor), Augustin Hadelich (violin), Joélle Harvey (soprano), Stephen Hough (piano), Pekka Kuusisto (violin), Simone Lamsma (violin), Kelley O’Connor (mezzo-soprano), Jean-Yves Thibaudet (piano), and Esther Yoo (violin), as well as CSO’s Principal Horn Elizabeth Freimuth.

The CSO season is presented by Western & Southern Financial Group.

CINCINNATI POPS

In the 2022-2023 season, the Cincinnati Pops continues its celebration of American music with large-scale productions spanning iconic cinematic experiences, the Great American Songbook, Broadway, R&B, and classical favorites. Pops Conductor John Morris Russell will lead four of five subscription programs, which include a centennial anniversary tribute to Hollywood legend Judy Garland featuring five-time Grammy®-nominated singer and pianist Michael Feinstein; Hear Me Roar: A Celebration of Women in Song featuring three powerhouse singers; Ragtime in Concert, with a full cast and chorus performing the complete musical alongside the Orchestra; and Holiday Pops, the beloved Cincinnati tradition, this year with the Annie Moses Band. Russell will also conduct the Fourth of July performance of Red, White & Boom! at Riverbend Music Center.

Pops Principal Guest Conductor Damon Gupton will lead the Orchestra in an all-Tchaikovsky Spectacular and New Year’s Eve with music from the Billie Holiday Songbook, performed by 2017 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition winner Quiana Lynell.

“Our season sparkles with the diversity of musical styles and genres that define the American musical experience, from folk, bluegrass, and gospel to jazz, blues, and soul,” says Pops Conductor John Morris Russell. “The virtuosic musicians of our Orchestra, our brilliant orchestrations, and spectacular special guests will create a unique experience that is quintessentially Cincinnati.”

The Pops will also present three special event film-with-live orchestra screenings, including Disney’s 1991 animated classic, Beauty and the Beast, featuring an unforgettable score by eight-time Oscar®-winning composer Alan Menken; Star Wars: The Force Awakens with music by legendary film composer John Williams; and Marvel Studios’ Black Panther, featuring music by Grammy® Award- and Academy® Award-winning Swedish composer Ludwig Göransson. Massamba Diop, the original percussionist for the highly acclaimed 2018 Marvel Studios film, will join the Pops for this cinematic live orchestra presentation.

CSO PROOF

Launched in 2019, the Orchestra’s CSO Proof series is an incubator for innovative concert formats, designed to challenge the constructs of a traditional orchestra performance. Programs are reimagined by an array of curators and collaborators and often employ elements of theater, dance, and visual media to add new dimensions of color and texture to the concert experience.

The 2022-2023 CSO Proof series begins on October 14–16, 2022 with Sun Dogs, presented in collaboration with FotoFocus as part of the 2022 FotoFocus Biennial: World Record celebration. Designed by Liquid Music and composer Daniel Wohl, Sun Dogs features three short CSO-commissioned works for film and full orchestra by genre-defying collaborators. CSO Creative Partner Matthias Pintscher will conduct the Orchestra in six Music Hall performances with all general admission tickets available for $5.

The next CSO Proof, on January 25, 2023 in the Music Hall Ballroom, is The Right to Be Forgotten, a postponed CSO co-commission with the Oregon Symphony from composer/pianist/vocalist Gabriel Kahane. Kahane’s thought-provoking new song cycle examines our cultural and economic obsessions with technology, convenience, and efficiency, and the debts—to labor, to the planet, to privacy, and, increasingly, to our free will—that accrue as a result.

The final CSO Proof of the 2022-2023 season, on March 29–30, 2023, is Surrealist el Tropical, rescheduled from the inaugural season of CSO Proof. The CSO, dancers, and audience members will share the same space in a program that conjures up the sights and sounds of the Havana nightclub scene. Featuring the Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre from Miami, Florida—led by Cuban-American choreographer Rosie Herrera—video by Clyde Scott, and lights by Luke Kritzeck, Surrealist el Tropical breaks down the fourth wall of reality and envelops the audience in a sultry, neon-lit world on the stage of Cincinnati Music Hall.

Sun Dogs is presented in collaboration with FotoFocus as part of the 2022 FotoFocus Biennial: World Record with support from the David C. Herriman Fund of Greater Cincinnati Foundation. The Right to Be Forgotten and Surrealist el Tropical are supported by The Haile Foundation, Irwin and Melinda Simon, and the American Orchestras’ Futures Fund, a program of the League of American Orchestras made possible by funding from the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation.

CLASSICAL ROOTS

On April 14, 2023, Pops Conductor John Morris Russell will conduct the Orchestra in CSO’s annual Classical Roots concert at Music Hall. For over two decades, Classical Roots has been a beloved Cincinnati tradition, and what started as a summer concert series in neighborhood churches in 2001 has grown into a vibrant spring celebration of the African American musical experience. At its heart is the Classical Roots Community Choir, led by William Henry Caldwell, that performs in numerous concerts and collaborations throughout the year.

YOUTH CONCERTS

The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra is committed to sharing orchestral music as widely as possible and with people of all ages. Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestras, made up of 200 of the region’s most talented young musicians, will perform three concerts next season, including the annual CSYO/CSO Side-by-Side with their musical counterparts from the CSO. Young Peoples’ Concerts, designed for students in grades K-12, and Lollipops Family Concerts, introducing children ages or ability 2-9 to the world of orchestral music with fun, interactive performances, will also make their full-season, in-person return to Music Hall, with programs to be announced at a later time.

The Lollipops Series is supported by United Dairy Farmers & Homemade Brand Ice Cream.

DIGITAL CONCERT LIVESTREAMS

The 2022-2023 season digital concert livestreams will build on a foundation of digital content that was catalyzed by Covid-19. In an effort to continue serving the Cincinnati community throughout the pandemic, the Orchestra made a significant commitment to digital innovation and was among the first orchestras across the nation to livestream concerts in 2020. Since then, the CSO, Pops, and May Festival have produced and streamed 24 full-length concerts on YouTube and Facebook, reaching nearly two million viewers and creating a global community of virtual concertgoers. The 2022-2023 digital concert livestreams will be announced at a later date.

Explore the CSO 22/23 Season

Buy CSO Season Tickets

Explore the Pops 22/23 Season

Buy Pops Season Tickets

Artistic Leadership

: Louis Langrée, Music Director, Louise Dieterle Nippert & Louis Nippert Chair

Louis Langrée has been Music Director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO) since 2013. His tenure in Cincinnati has been marked by bold initiatives including the Pelléas et Mélisande Trilogy; MusicNOW collaboration; the Concertos for Orchestra project, which yielded three new works and an album that garnered two Grammy nominations; and the Beethoven [R]evolution, which paired Beethoven’s symphonies with new commissions and 20^th century masterworks. Committed to presenting the music of our time, Langrée and the CSO will have commissioned 62 new works between the start of his tenure as Music Director in 2013 and the conclusion of the CSO’s 2022-2023 season, including compositions by Julia Adolphe, Daníel Bjarnason, Jennifer Higdon, David Lang, André Previn, Zhou Tian, Caroline Shaw, Symphony No. 6 by Christopher Rouse, and 20 solo fanfares during the Covid-19 pandemic. In recent seasons, Langrée has toured with the CSO on three continents, including appearances at New York’s Lincoln Center on the Great Performers series, the Hong Kong Arts Festival, Shanghai, Beijing, Edinburgh International Festival, BBC Proms (London), and La Seine Musicale (Paris).

Since 2003, Langrée has been Music Director of Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival in New York, and in 2021, Langrée was appointed Director of Opéra Comique in Paris, France. He is internationally sought-after as a guest conductor, with recent engagements at the Berliner Philharmoniker, Wiener Philharmoniker, London Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre de Paris, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Budapest Festival, Czech Philharmonic, and NHK Symphony Orchestra. Langrée regularly conducts at the world’s leading opera houses including more than 50 performances at The Metropolitan Opera in New York, Vienna State Opera, La Scala in Milan, Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Glyndebourne, and at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. Langrée is a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur and Officier des Arts et des Lettres.
: Matthias Pintscher, CSO Creative Partner

Matthias Pintscher is the Music Director of the Ensemble intercontemporain, the world’s leading contemporary music ensemble founded by Pierre Boulez. In the 2020-2021 season, Pintscher began a three-year appointment as the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s Creative Partner. Known equally as one of today’s foremost composers, Pintscher conducted the premiere of his new work for baritone, chorus, and orchestra, performed by Georg Nigl and the Chorus and Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks at their Musica Viva festival in February 2020, and the world premiere of Assonanza, written for violin and chamber orchestra, and performed by Leila Josefowicz and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in January 2022.

Matthias Pintscher began his musical training in conducting, studying with Pierre Boulez and Péter Eötvös while in his early 20s, during which time composing soon took a more prominent role in his life. He rapidly gained critical acclaim in both areas of activity and continues to compose in addition to his conducting career. As a composer, Pintscher's music is championed by some of today's finest performing artists, orchestras, and conductors. His works have been performed by such orchestras as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the Orchestre de Paris, among many others. Bärenreiter is his exclusive publisher, and recordings of his compositions can be found on Kairos, EMI, Teldec, Wergo, and Winter & Winter. Matthias Pintscher has been on the composition faculty of the Juilliard School since 2014.
: John Morris Russell, Pops Conductor, Louise Dieterle Nippert & Louis Nippert Chair

A master of American musical style, Grammy-nominated conductor John Morris Russell has devoted himself to redefining the American orchestral experience. In his eleventh year as conductor of the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, the wide-range and diversity of his work as a conductor, collaborator and educator continues to reinvigorate the musical scene throughout Cincinnati and across the continent. As Music Director of the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra in South Carolina, Russell leads the prestigious Hilton Head International Piano Competition, and he also serves as Principal Pops Conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, following in the footsteps of Marvin Hamlisch and Doc Severinsen. As a guest conductor, he has worked with many of the most distinguished orchestras in North America, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Boston Pops, National Symphony, and the orchestras of Toronto, Vancouver, Dallas, Detroit, and Pittsburgh.

With the Cincinnati Pops, Russell leads sold-out performances at Music Hall, concerts throughout the region, as well as domestic and international tours—including Florida in 2014 and China/Taiwan in 2017. His visionary leadership at the Pops created the “American Originals Project,” which has garnered both critical and popular acclaim in two landmark recordings: American Originals (the music of Stephen Foster) as well as American Originals: 1918. In 2020, the American Originals Project continued with King Records and the Cincinnati Sound with Late Night with David Letterman musical director, Paul Shaffer, celebrating the beginnings of bluegrass, country, rockabilly, soul and funk immortalized in recordings produced in the Queen City. Russell’s other recordings with The Pops include Home for the Holidays, Superheroes, Carnival of the Animals, and Voyage. Russell’s recent collaborations with artists around the world include Aretha Franklin, Emanuel Ax, Amy Grant and Vince Gill, Common, Garrick Ohlsson, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Jon Kimura Parker, Ann Hampton Callaway, Michael McDonald, Cho-Liang Lin, Sutton Foster, George Takei, Megan Hilty, Ranky Tanky, Steve Martin, Katharine McPhee, Brian Wilson, Cynthia Erivo, and Leslie Odom, Jr.
: Damon Gupton, Pops Principal Guest Conductor

Damon Gupton is the Principal Guest Conductor of the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. A native of Detroit, Michigan, Gupton served as American Conducting Fellow of the Houston Symphony and held the post of assistant conductor of the Kansas City Symphony. His conducting appearances include the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Detroit Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Cincinnati Pops, National Symphony Orchestra, Ft. Worth Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo, and Orquesta Filarmónica de UNAM. He led the Sphinx Chamber Orchestra on two national tours with performances at Carnegie Hall and conducted the finals of the Seventh Cliburn International Amateur Piano Competition in 2016 and returns to Cliburn again in 2020. Gupton received his Bachelor of Music Education from the University of Michigan, and studied conducting with David Zinman and Murry Sidlin at the Aspen Music Festival and with Leonard Slatkin at the National Conducting Institute. Awards include the Robert J. Harth Conducting Prize and The Aspen Conducting Prize. Mr. Gupton is the inaugural recipient of the Emerging Artist Award from the University of Michigan School of Music and Alumni Society.

An accomplished actor, Gupton graduated from the Drama Division of the Juilliard School. He has had roles in television, film, and on stage, most recently starring with Samuel L. Jackson in the upcoming Apple TV limited series The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey. His additional credits in television, film, and on stage, include the Broadway production of Bruce Norris’ Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning Clybourne Park, the Ovation and LA Drama Critic’s Circle award winning Ma Rainey's Black Bottom at the Mark Taper Forum. Gupton's television credits include series regular roles on Black Lightning, Criminal Minds, The Player, The Divide, Prime Suspect, and Deadline as well as guest or recurring appearances on Dirty John, Goliath, Bates Motel, The Newsroom, Suits, Empire, and Rake, as well as Damien Chazelle's Academy Award-winning films Whiplash and LaLa Land.

The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra & Cincinnati Pops gratefully acknowledge support from:

CSO Season Sponsor
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Cincinnati Pops Season Sponsor

Lollipops Series Sponsor Lollipops Additional Support

Annual Support