Biography
Conductor
Christian Reif
German conductor CHRISTIAN REIF, who has quickly established a name for himself as a fast-rising talent, is Music Director of the Lakes Area Music Festival of Minnesota. His 2021–22 engagements include appearances with the Hallé Orchestra, Munich Radio Orchestra, Orchestre National de Leon, Odense Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, New World Symphony, and Kansas City Symphony. He also leads a Juilliard Opera production of The Merry Wives of Windsor at the Juilliard School’s Peter Jay Sharp Theater in his New York City opera debut. He recently conducted the Stavanger Symphony in a program of works by Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Samuel Barber, and he made his debut in March 2021 with the Orchestre National d’île de France in a streamed performance of Stravinsky’s Apollon musagète.
Mr. Reif is the former resident conductor of the San Francisco Symphony and music director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, and former conducting fellow with the New World Symphony and at the Tanglewood Music Center. He studied with Alan Gilbert at Juilliard and Dennis Russell Davies at the Mozarteum Salzburg. He is winner of the 2015 German Operetta Prize, awarded by the German Music Council, and two Kulturförderpreise awards given to promising artists of the region who promote cultural advancement in their communities.
Mr. Reif is the former resident conductor of the San Francisco Symphony and music director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, and former conducting fellow with the New World Symphony and at the Tanglewood Music Center. He studied with Alan Gilbert at Juilliard and Dennis Russell Davies at the Mozarteum Salzburg. He is winner of the 2015 German Operetta Prize, awarded by the German Music Council, and two Kulturförderpreise awards given to promising artists of the region who promote cultural advancement in their communities.
