GRAMMY® award-winning conductor Christian Reif is Music Director Designate of Wuppertal Opera & Symphony Orchestra, where he leads his inaugural season as Music Director in 2027/28. Reif holds the title of Chief Conductor of the Gävle Symphony Orchestra in Sweden, where his term has been extended for 2 years through the 2027/28 season, and has established a reputation for his natural musicality, innovative programming and technical command.
Since 2022, Reif has served as Music Director of the Lakes Area Music Festival, a month-long summer festival in Minnesota featuring the nation’s top classical performers in programming that ranges from opera and chamber music to symphonic performances along with commissioned new works. LAMF believes that high quality arts experiences should be accessible to all and operates on a name-your-price ticket model.
Highlights of Reif’s 2026/27 season include performances with the Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra in his role as Music Director Designate, and his collaboration with star soloists such as Anastasia Kobekina and Nicolas Altstaedt in his role as Chief Conductor with the Gävle Symphony Orchestra. For their last concert of the season, he brings Gävle Symphony Orchestra to Stockholm. Reif makes his debut with the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra, Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic, Sarasota Orchestra, and leads an opera production at Rice University in Houston. He also returns to the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra.
With an equal footing in North America and Europe, Reif has conducted the symphony orchestras of San Francisco, Baltimore, Seattle, Dallas, Houston, Nashville, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Kansas City, The Florida Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and Orchestra of St. Luke’s. Previous season highlights include appearances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, SWR Symphony Orchestra, and Royal Northern Sinfonia. In Europe, he has performed with Orchestre National de Lyon, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Münchner Rundfunkorchester, Hallé Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and Stavanger Symphony.
Reif enjoys conducting opera and has led productions at the Music Academy of the West of Don Giovanni, Juilliard Opera of The Merry Wives of Windsor, Opera San Jose of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, and the Lakes Area Music Festival of Ariadne auf Naxos, The Rake’s Progress, and Hansel and Gretel.
In 2023, Reif won a GRAMMY® for the Nonesuch Records album Walking in the Dark, the debut solo album of classical singer Julia Bullock in which he accompanied her on piano and led London’s Philharmonia Orchestra. The album was praised by Gramophone Magazine as “illuminating” and described Reif as providing “excellent support” for Bullock. In 2020 during the pandemic, Reif and Bullock recorded a series of at-home virtual “Songs of Comfort”, ranging from Carole King’s classic “Up on the Roof” to Schubert’s Wanderers Nachtlied. NPR Music featured the duo in a “Tiny Desk Concert” for their special quarantine edition of the series, and The New York Times highlighted them on their “Best Classical Music of 2020” list.
From 2016 to 2019, Reif was Resident Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony and Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, after being the Conducting Fellow at the New World Symphony from 2014 to 2016 and at Tanglewood Music Center in 2015 and 2016. He studied conducting at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and at The Juilliard School in New York City. He resides in Munich with his wife Julia Bullock and their son.