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.

An avid performer, the young Maestro has appeared as guest conductor with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Memphis Symphony Orchestra, Starling Chamber Orchestra, Blueshift Ensemble, Concert:Nova, and All of the Above ensemble.

In 2017 he made his opera debut with the CCM Opera Theatre where he conducted a performance of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide as a part of their "Bernstein at a 100" centennial celebration and has since gone on to work with the opera companies of Cincinnati (as the John L. Magro Resident Conductor 2021-2022) workshopping, covering, and performing various operas since 2018 and in Naples (Florida) covering Ramon Tebar and making his debut in Tom Cipullo’s Glory Denied (2022). Recent opera appearances include his return to CCM Opera leading productions of Gregory Spears’s Fellow Travelers and Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia and Midsummer Night’s Dream. Langley has recorded albums with the Memphis Repertory Orchestra (Dvorak + Tchaikovsky and“Voyagers : Scheherazade + Mitton”) and All of the Above Ensemble (Double Portrait), the latter of which led to his Carnegie Hall conducting debut in the fall of 2018.

2025/26 season highlights include appearances with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and a return to CCM to lead their double-bill of Poulenc’s Les Mamelles de Tiresias and Weill’s Mahagonny Songspiel.

In demand as a cover conductor, Langley has been a frequent cover with the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Baltimore, and Cincinnati covering such conductors as 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, among others.

Langley 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. He 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.​