Business Courier: Louis Langrée, Cincinnati's maestro, is immersed in vibe of the city

For Louis Langrée, being the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra music director means more than just conducting concerts in Music Hall. It means participating in the life of a city. And that includes working with student musicians at the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music.

Recently Langrée conducted a concert with the CCM Philharmonia. During the week before the performance in CCM's Corbett Auditorium, he rehearsed the students three times in his all-French program and coached some aspiring young conductors. That night, the house was packed, including many UC faculty members and a crush of students trying to get in. Afterwards, Langrée said he was impressed by the individual artistry of many of the young players, many of whom were playing solos for the first time in Debussy’s “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun” and “Symphonie fantastique."

"I was so proud of them," Langrée told the Cincinnati Business Courier. "In the ‘March to the Scaffold,’ there were some moments where I thought, this is exactly right. I kept telling them, not too loud — fortissimo is energy, it’s not volume.”

Read the full interview in the Cincinnati Business Courier.

Featured image at top: Louis Langreé conducts CCM students in a rehearsal. Photo/Joseph Fuqua II/UC Creative Services.