Date and time:

Wednesday 13 March, 19:00

Award:

Notified

Beethoven & Reif – Ockelbo

Gävle Symphony Orchestra
Chief Conductor Christian Reif

MONTGOMERY Strum
SAINT-GEORGES Symphony No. 1
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 4

Gävle Symphony Orchestra, led by chief conductor Christian Reif, comes to Järvsö Church for an exciting concert. The program offers a modern introduction by Jessie Montgomery and continues with the Frenchman, born in Guadeloupe, Joseph Bologne – Chevalier de Saint-Georges, who was a contemporary of Mozart. The concert ends with Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony.

Christian Reif
Gävle Symphony Orchestra’s chief conductor Christian Reif has quickly established a good reputation for his natural musicality and technical mastery. He is the artistic director of the Lakes Area Music Festival in Minnesota, a month-long summer festival that ranges from opera and chamber music to symphonic performances.
The 2022/23 season included concerts with several of the leading orchestras in Europe and the USA, and in the summer of 2023 he conducted concerts at the Enescu Festival, the Grand Teton Music Festival and the World Youth Symphony Orchestra at Interlochen.
With feet in both North America and Europe, Reif has conducted symphony orchestras in cities such as San Francisco, Baltimore, Houston, Dallas, Colorado, Indianapolis, Kansas City and Saint Paul. In Europe he has performed repeatedly with the Orchester National de Lyon, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Münchner Rundfunkorchester, Gävle Symphony Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra and Stavanger Symphony.
During the pandemic, Reif was active on the piano, recording a series of virtual “Songs of Comfort” with his wife, classical singer Julia Bullock. In November 2020, NPR Music featured the duo in a “Tiny Desk (Home) Concert” for their special quarantine edition of the series. NPR’s Tom Huizenga found it “among the most transcendent musical moments I’ve experienced this year” and The New York Times highlighted them on their “Best Classical Music of 2020” list.
From 2016 to 2019, Christian was House Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony and Artistic Director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, after having been a Conducting Fellow at the New World Symphony from 2014 to 2016 and at the Tanglewood Music Center in 2015 and 2016. He studied conducting at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and at The Juilliard School in New York City. It was there that he first met his wife Julia Bullock, with whom he lives in Munich.