Lucien Werner, Music Director
Lucien Werner '13, a government concentrator living in Adams House, will be serving as the 45th Music Director of the Bach Society Orchestra. He has been actively engaged in the Harvard music community since his freshman year. For three years, he has been a cellist in the Brattle Street Chamber Players, of which he is currently President. In the fall of 2011, he music directed a production of HMS Pinafore with the Harvard-Radcliffe Gilbert and Sullivan Players. Prior to that, he music directed scenes from Weber’s Die Freischutz and Massanet’s Cendrillon for Lowell House Opera’s Scenes Concerts. He has also played cello in the Harvard Radcliffe Orchestra, several Dunster House Opera productions, and Harvard Early Music Society’s La Calisto. In addition to being elected to direct BachSoc next year, Lucien was also the winner of the orchestra’s 2011-2012 concerto competition and performed Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto in E-flat with the orchestra on their last concert of the 2011-2012 season.
Lucien's musical roots go back to his childhood in Bozeman, Montana, where he and his three sisters, Hélène, Mariel (’16), and Andrée (’16) were born and raised. Early on, they formed the Werner Quartet and were very active in supporting local community organizations and charities, including the Rescue Mission for the Homeless and the Wyoming Girls School. He has shared music in support of Montana arts for the Emerson Cultural Center, the Equinox Theater Company, Montana Shakespeare in the Parks, music seminars at Montana State University, and for numerous public schools, rural schoolhouses, and universities at home and abroad that encourage opportunities for young musicians.
Lucien studied cello with Richard Aaron from 2004 to 2011 and currently is a student of Hans Jorgen Jensen of Northwestern University. He has also studied piano with Brian Johnson and is a distinguished participant of the Royal Conservatory of Music's piano and theory program. At Harvard, he has studied chamber music with Robert Levin, Daniel Stepner, and Heng-Jin Park. His conducting teachers include Federico Cortese, Maurice Peress, Donald Portnoy, and Matthew Savery. He has also had private audiences with cellists Laszlo Varga, Andres Diaz, Michel Strauss, Wolfgang Lehner, Bernard Greenhouse, Lluis Claret, Julius Berger, Harro Ruijsenaars, and Steve Donane. He has soloed with the String Orchestra of the Rockies in Missoula Montana, and has been enthusiastically received at Montana State University's Guest Artist and President's Fine Arts Series, St. Timothy's Summer Music Festival in Georgetown Lake, Montana, the Music Guild in Los Angeles, the Congress of Luthiers in France, the Provincehuis in Groningen, Holland, and on National Public Radio's From the Top. During the summers, he and his quartet have performed at festivals and venues abroad, including Peter de Grote Festival in Holland, La Ferme de Villefavard and Chateau Fonplégade in France, the Mittelfest in Cividale, Italy, and the Mozarteum International Summer Academy in Salzburg. Most recently, in March 2012, Lucien made his Carnegie Hall debut at Weill Hall.
Beyond Lucien's involvement with classical music and his many arrangements for the Werner Quartet, he enjoys performing tangos, jazz combos, Broadway musicals, and occasionally drops his acoustic cello (and his baton) and picks up electric versions to perform his own arrangements of rock 'n roll.
View a list of all past music directors of the Bach Society Orchestra.