MA Top 30 Professional: Jonathan Martin

President and CEO
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

Jonathan Martin has been presiding over a new era at the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Last April, the CSO chose Cristian Macelaru to succeed Louis Langrée as music director, starting in 2025-26. “This was the fourth music director search I’ve been involved with,” says Martin, who recently announced his pending retirement. “There is no question Cristi is going to continue the core sound and quality of ensemble developed by Louis. In addition, he has a track record of unlocking the assets of an orchestra to serve a broader audience.”

Martin paved the way for Macelaru by reaching a five-year labor agreement with CSO musicians that took effect in September. It provides a 23 percent raise in salary over the life of the contract; base pay is $122,087 this season. The CSO is one of the most financially stable American orchestras, with a 2023-24 operating budget of $38 million and endowments valued at $382 million.

It has been a leader in trying to address the lack of musicians of color in symphony orchestras, and that is covered in the new contract, to cultivate diversity. Since 2016, the orchestra, in collaboration with the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, has offered diversity fellowships to mentor five string players of color a year. The orchestra is a co-founder of Equity ARC, which seeks to broaden diversity in conservatories, and it and the Philadelphia Orchestra were the first major orchestras to establish a chief diversity and inclusion officer.

“We have two members of color in the orchestra, and the Fellows play in almost all the classical weeks,” Martin says. “We’re making progress, but it’s a lot slower than I’d like.” The CSO diversity effort was set back by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling that race-based affirmative action in higher education was unconstitutional. “The
decision hampered our partnership with the conservatory, and Mellon is phasing out the funding. But we are continuing the fellowship program and taking the funding in-house. We’re going to find our way through this because it’s important.”