German conductor Christian Reif joined the San Francisco Symphony as Resident Conductor and Wattis Foundation Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra in the 2016-17 season. He was previously Conducting Fellow with the New World Symphony in Miami, where he was mentored by Michael Tilson Thomas. Mr. Reif completed his master of music in conducting at the Juilliard School under Alan Gilbert, where he received the Charles Schiff Conducting Award. He also studied with Dennis Russell Davies at the Mozarteum Salzburg. Mr. Reif is currently a member of Germany's Conductor's Forum where he was named one of their “Maestros of Tomorrow.” He was Conducting Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in 2015 and 2016 and has also worked as assistant and cover conductor for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, and for the New York Phil Biennial. Mr. Reif won the German Operetta Prize 2015, awarded by the German Music Council. In the 2017-18 season, Mr. Reif makes his debut with the Orchestre National de Lyon and the Bruckner Orchestra Linz, works with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Orchestra, and makes return engagements with the Berkeley Symphony, Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, and the Lakes Area Music Festival. This summer, he makes his debut with the Indianapolis Symphony and at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York City. His enthusiasm in performing contemporary music has led to many world premiere performances, including Michael Gordon’s El Sol Caliente, a city symphony in honor of Miami Beach’s centennial; and concertos for DJ and orchestra, performed at the New World Symphony’s PULSE events. A dedicated and enthusiastic educator, Mr. Reif has also worked as a teaching fellow at the Juilliard School. He hosted and conducted education concerts with the New World Symphony, which were also webcast globally.

(April 2018)

Austrian-born, New York-based composer and performer Dorit Chrysler founded the first international schools for theremin, KidCoolThereminSchool and L’École Theremine, with branches in New York and Paris. As the founding director of the New York Theremin Society, Ms. Chrysler promotes the application of the theremin in different art disciplines. She is currently producing a THERMIN100 compilation release, commemorating the 100th birthday of the instrument in 2020. She received her master’s degree in musicology in Vienna and has collaborated with Anders Trentemøller, Cluster, Adult., CERN, Carsten Nicolai, Elliot Sharp, and Laurie Spiegel, among others. Ms. Chrysler recently finished an analog soundtrack for a remake of M by Fritz Lang, titled M—A City Hunts a Murderer which premiered at this year’s Berlinale Film Festival. A fierce champion of the theremin, she is featured on the soundtrack of the HBO documentary Going Clear and her works have been commissioned by MoMA and the Venice Biennale. She is the founder of Dame Electric, a festival dedicated to female pioneers in analog music, has received a Knightsbridge Foundation Grant, and has lectured at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute and the Sibelius Academy. She co-produced a ten-piece theremin orchestra performance at Los Angeles’s Disney Hall and produced Invisible Flames, a work for a ten-piece children’s theremin orchestra, commissioned by the Styrian Autumn Festival. Ms. Chrysler has performed at Lincoln Center, Coachella, Roskilde, Palais Tokyo, the Louisiana Museum, Konzerthaus Vienna, and MMCA Seoul, and in concerts in Brazil, Australia, Japan, China, Mexico, Europe, and Canada. Dorit Chrysler made her San Francisco Symphony debut in 2015.

(April 2019)