Michael Christie
THE 2011/12 SEASON marks Michael Christie’s eighth year as the Virginia G. Piper Music Director of The Phoenix Symphony. He also celebrates his eleventh as Music Director of the Colorado Music Festival, presented each summer in Boulder, CO where Festival attendance has reached all-time highs. From 2005-2010 he served as Music Director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic, bringing his artistry and innovative programming to New York City and beyond. From 2001-04, he served as Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Queensland Orchestra in Brisbane, Australia.
Maestro Christie has been recognized for adventurous programming by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and passionately advocates for concerts that connect orchestras to its audience in enlightening and inspirational ways. He has broken down barriers between performers and patrons through his engaging Intermission Insights interviews as well as real-time program notes called Clef Notes. In addition to extra-musical enhancements to performances, Mr. Christie has been a driving force in internationally acclaimed collaborations with symphony orchestras and various “Indie-rock” ensembles.
During his sixteen-year professional conducting career, Mr. Christie has appeared with well over one hundred orchestras across North America and Europe. North American highlights of these include performances with the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestras and St. Louis, Atlanta, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Dallas symphonies. Overseas, he has been honoured to conduct Berlin’s Deutsches Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Czech Philharmonic among others. His ties to orchestras in Scandinavia have been particularly strong with engagements in all five countries.
Michael Christie has also established a strong reputation as an opera conductor. In June 2009, he made his critically acclaimed North American staged opera debut with a new production of John Corigliano’s “The Ghosts of Versailles” with the Opera Theatre of St. Louis. That production was immediately revived at the Wexford Festival Opera and he conducted a new production of “Ghosts” at the 2010 Aspen Music Festival. During this season he conduct Verdi’s “La Traviata” and the professional staged premier of Bernard Herrmann’s “Wuthering Height”s at the Minnesota Opera and return to the Opera Theatre of St. Louis for a new production of John Adams’ “Death of Klinghoffer”. He conducted both opera and ballet performances at the Zurich Opera, where he was Assistant Conductor to Franz Welser-Möst for the 1997/98 Season. He has also worked with the Finnish National Opera and with the Queensland Opera.
Mr. Christie first came to international attention in 1995 when he was awarded a special prize at the First International Sibelius Conductor’s Competition in Helsinki at age 21. He subsequently became an apprentice conductor with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Associate Conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic. Michael Christie graduated from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music with a bachelor’s degree in trumpet performance.
