Our History
Learn more about the rich and storied histories of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and its 14 Music Directors, the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, and the National Historic Landmark Music Hall. 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. In the 2025-26 season, Cristian Mӑcelaru joins the Orchestra as its 14th Music Director, adding to the CSO’s distinguished roster of past music directors that includes Leopold Stokowski, Eugène Ysaÿe, Fritz Reiner, Max Rudolf, Jesús López Cobos, Paavo Järvi and Louis Langrée. 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 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. An industry leader in diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I), the CSO was one of the first American orchestras to create a Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer position on its administrative team and the first to endow the role, ensuring the absorption of best DE&I practices into every facet of the organization in perpetuity. In 2007, the CSO created the Nouveau Program, which has supported increased participation in classical music and provided equitable opportunities for music study and performance for more than 80 African American and Latine student musicians. The CSO is also an incubator for and partner to Equity Arc, a consortium of American orchestras, professional musicians and educators established to address the lack of racial equity in the classical music field by aligning resources and collaborating to strengthen the trajectory of classical instrumentalists of color at all stages of their pre-careers.
