Why Cincinnatians should listen closely to the music at the Olympics opening ceremony

It was supposed to be a secret.

But news like this has a way of sneaking out.

Cristian Macelaru, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s music director designate , will conduct his Orchestre National de France during the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games on Friday.

For some reason, the information was being held back until the performance actually began. But on Sunday, Romanian television ( www.Tvrinfo.ro ) reported Macelaru’s involvement. (Macelaru was born in Romania.) Soon, the story was reported on British music journalist Norman Lebrecht’s well-respected blog Slipped Disc .

"I never thought in my life that I would have this opportunity,” Macelaru said in a short interview broadcast on TVR Info. “It's a very beautiful thing because it's an event where we all seem to forget the things that separate us and remember the beauty of the things that help us come together."

There has been no word on what Macelaru and his orchestra will play. But if recent Olympic games are an indicator, we should be ready for just about anything. The French Olympics organizers are unlikely to forget the popular success of their cross-channel rivals, the British, when they hosted the Olympics in 2012. That’s the one where the late Queen Elizabeth II – a body double, actually – and James Bond (Daniel Craig) leaped from a helicopter and parachuted into the stadium to kick off the opening ceremony .

The opening ceremony will be broadcast live on NBC at 1:30 p.m. EDT Friday. That evening, at 7:30 p.m., it will be rebroadcast.

As for Macelaru, known widely as “Cristi,” his duties as music director begin with the CSO’s 2024-25 season, though he isn’t scheduled to conduct here until Feb. 8-9, 2025, when he will lead a delightfully varied program that includes works by Wynton Marsalis, Florence Price, Ernest Chausson and concludes with Antonin Dvorak’s “New World Symphony.”

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Why Cincinnatians should listen closely to the music at the Olympics opening ceremony