Newly appointed Artistic Director of the George Enescu Festival and Competition, GRAMMY® Award winning conductor Cristian Măcelaru is Music Director of the Orchestre National de France, Chief Conductor of the WDR Sinfonieorchester, Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Interlochen Center for the Arts’ World Youth Symphony Orchestra, and Music Director and Conductor of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music.
In the 2022/23 season, Măcelaru makes guest appearances with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Wiener Symphoniker, Staatskapelle Berlin, Dresdner Philharmonie, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony and St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.
In his third season as Music Director of the Orchestre National de France, Măcelaru leads the orchestra in their first internaional tour together, with concerts in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Vienna, Frankfurt, Cologne. On this tour they are joined by Artist in Residence Daniil Trifonov and guest artist Xavier de Maistre.
Cristian Măcelaru attracted international attenAon for the first Ame in 2012, when he stepped into the breach with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, deputizing for Pierre Boulez. In the same year, he received the “Solti Emerging Conductor Award” for young conductors, followed in 2014 by the “Solti Conducting Award”. Since then, he has performed regularly at the podium of the best American orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony and National Symphony Orchestra. A particularly close collaboration connects him with the Philadelphia Orchestra: Since his debut in April 2013, he has been on the podium of this orchestra over 150 Ames and served there for three seasons as Conductor-in-Residence.
Cristian Măcelaru was born in Timișoara, Romania and comes from a musical family. As the youngest of ten children, he received instrumental lessons at an early age – like all his siblings – in his case on the violin. His studies took him from Romania to the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, University of Miami in Florida and Rice University in Houston, where he studied conducting with Larry Rachleff. He then deepened his knowledge at Tanglewood Music Center and Aspen Music Festival in masterclasses with David Zinman, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Oliver Knussen and Stefan Asbury.
