William R. Langley

Biography

William R. Langley currently serves as Resident Conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Staff Conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and Music Director of the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra. In 2009 he founded the Wolf River Chamber Orchestra and in 2011 the Memphis Repertory Orchestra. Maestro Langley led over fifty performances with the MRO during his decade-long tenure, during which the orchestra — guided by its mission to "Shape the Next Generation of Orchestral Musicians" — served as Orchestra in Residence at the Buckman Performing Arts Center.

He has appeared as guest conductor with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra, Toledo Symphony Orchestra, and Memphis Symphony Orchestra, among others. Recent highlights include his debut with the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra; his debut with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra; return engagements with the Atlanta and Baltimore symphony orchestras; and an international tour of Spain with the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra, culminating in a performance at the Granada Festival. During the 2026/27 season, Langley will lead performances with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra and makes his Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Delta Subscription Series debut in May 2027.

Equally at home in the opera house, Langley made his operatic debut in 2017 with CCM Opera Theatre, conducting Leonard Bernstein’s Candide as part of the conservatory’s Bernstein centennial celebration. He subsequently served as the John L. Magro Resident Conductor of Cincinnati Opera during the 2021/22 season, following several seasons working with the company on workshops, productions, and performances. In 2022, he made his Opera Naples debut conducting Tom Cipullo's Glory Denied after serving as cover conductor for Ramón Tebar. Recent operatic engagements have included returns to CCM Opera Theatre for productions of Gregory Spears' Fellow Travelers, Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia and A Midsummer Night's Dream, and a double bill of Poulenc's Les Mamelles de Tirésiasand Weill's Mahagonny Songspiel. This season he returns to CCM Opera in April 2027 to conduct Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos.

Langley’s discography includes two albums with the Memphis Repertory Orchestra, Dvořák + Tchaikovsky and Voyagers: Scheherazade + Mitton. Most recently his recording Double Portrait with All of the Above Ensemble on Ablaze Records led to his Carnegie Hall conducting debut.

In demand as a cover conductor, Langley has worked extensively with the Atlanta, Baltimore, and Cincinnati symphony orchestras, covering conductors including Sir Donald Runnicles, Louis Langrée, Carlos Kalmar, Juanjo Mena, Jonathon Heyward, Ramón Tebar, Robert Spano, Krzysztof Urbański, Peter Oundjian, Marin Alsop, Nathalie Stutzmann, Nicola Luisotti, Xian Zhang, Dame Jane Glover, and Miguel Harth-Bedoya.

He holds a Master’s degree in Orchestral Conducting from the College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) in Cincinnati where he studied under the tutelage of Maestro Mark Gibson. Langley was selected by members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the American Austrian Foundation to be awarded one of two esteemed Ansbacher Fellowships for Young Conductors with the opportunity to study in Austria at the 2019 Salzburger Festspiele.

Langley's "energetic but fluid conducting style gave shape and sweep to the evening … without overdoing the finely drawn orchestral textures" wrote Mark Gresham (Ear Relevant). He also praised Langley's ability to "maintain good cohesion throughout the program" and "relish the music's theatrical energy," noting his "comfortable rapport with the orchestra" and calling him a conductor "equally at ease in serious symphonic literature and more populist fare." Langley has been profiled in the Commercial Appeal feature "Young Conductor Realizing Dreams" and was named one of "20 young Memphians shaping the city's future" by the Memphis Flyer.