Christopher Ward (conductor)

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Christopher Ward

Christopher Ward (born March 18, 1980 in London ) is a British conductor and currently General Music Director at the Theater Aachen .

Career

Christopher Ward studied musicology at Oxford University and conducting and piano at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama . During this time he worked as a conductor with the Oxford University Philharmonia, Oxford University Chorus, Oxford Bach Chorus, New Chamber Opera and the Arcadian Singers.

In 2003, Christopher Ward received a scholarship from the Scottish Opera and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow , where he assisted Sir Richard Armstrong, Richard Farnes and Timothy Dean, among others .

The following year he became a member of the International Opera Studio in Zurich .

In 2005, Ward moved to the Staatstheater Kassel as Kapellmeister and solo repetitor . There he took over the musical direction of Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore , Nicola Porporas Il Gedeone , Loewes My Fair Lady , Weill's The Seven Deadly Sins , Ullman's The Emperor of Atlantis , Ernst Krenek's The Secret Kingdom , Little Red Riding Hood, Lauf! , Jan Müller-Wieland's Little Red Riding Hood's Lullaby , Markus Schmitt's In the Basket , Claus Kühnl's In Little Red Riding Hood's Bed , Charlotte Seithers The bright edge of fear and awakening , the world premiere of Richard Beaudoin's Ascension , the German premiere of Bohuslav Martinů's Hlas lesa (The Voice of the Forest) , Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti , George Gershwin's Blue Monday and Eberhard Streul's Spuk in the Handel House . He also conducted Verdi's Simon Boccanegra , Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel , Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro , Offenbach's Hoffmann's Tales , Handel's Hercules , Lehár's Der Graf von Luxemburg , Suppé's bandit pranks and Porter's Anything Goes . In addition, he conducted the Kassel State Orchestra in various concerts and was responsible for the annual theater youth orchestra project.

From 2006 to 2007 he assisted Sir Simon Rattle with the Berliner Philharmoniker in Wagner's Das Rheingold ; first in Aix-en-Provence, then in Berlin and Salzburg ( Easter Festival 2007).

From 2009 to 2013 Christopher Ward was Kapellmeister at the Bavarian State Opera and assistant to Kent Nagano . He took over the musical direction of the new productions of Rossini's La Cenerentola , Haydn's La fedeltà premiata and Janáček's The Cunning Little Vixen , conducted performances of Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia and the world premieres of Péter Eötvös ' Make The Devil's Tragedy , Lucia Ronchetti's Ship of Fools and Miracles Noise with Ensemble Modern at the opening of the Munich Opera Festival 2011. He also directed concerts by the Bavarian State Orchestra , the Orchestra Academy, the opera studios of the Bavarian State Opera , La Scala in Milan and the Young Munich Philharmonic .

Christopher Ward has also made guest appearances at the Hamburg State Opera (Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro ), the Deutsche Oper am Rhein (Verdis La traviata ), the Komische Oper Berlin (Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro ), the Braunschweig State Theater (Verdis Rigoletto ), and the Salzburg State theater (Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia ), music theater in the Gelsenkirchen district (Saint-Saens Samson et Dalila ), State Theater Mainz (Verdi's Un ballo in maschera ), Gerhart-Hauptmann-Theater Görlitz (Verdi's La traviata ), Theater Augsburg (Puccini's La Bohème ) and at the Darmstadt State Theater (Puccini's Madama Butterfly ), and conducted concerts with the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Cottbus State Theater , the New Lusatian Philharmonic and the Altenburg-Gera Philharmonic Orchestra. As part of the ISCM World Music Days 2013, he also conducted the world premiere of Ľubica Čekovská's opera Dorian Gray at the Slovak National Theater and later at the Prague Spring 2015 International Music Festival .

Christopher Ward has been 1st Kapellmeister at the Saarland State Theater since 2014 . Here he directed new productions of Griegs / Sæveruds Peer Gynt , Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges and Daphnis et Chloé , Rimski-Korsakow's Der goldene Hahn and Georg Friedrich Haas ' Bluthaus , as well as conducted performances of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and Verdi's Macbeth .

In the 2015/2016 season he took over the musical direction of Rameau's Platée , Dvořák's Rusalka and Verdi's Rigoletto and conducted various performances of Verdi's Un ballo in maschera , Britten's Peter Grimes and Mozart's Don Giovanni . In addition, he conducted a number of symphony concerts, including a program with music by and with Jörg Widmann and, in the 5th symphony concert of the Braunschweig State Orchestra, Beethoven's 4th Symphony in B flat major op. 60 and Mahler's 1st symphony in D major as well as the ballet Productions Griegs / Sæveruds Peer Gynt and Inger Celis Eckmanns Kylián_Celis_Chaix. At the end of the season he made his debut with the Brandenburger Symphoniker in July 2016.

In the 2016/2017 season, new productions of Weber's Freischütz and Verdi's Simon Boccanegra followed , a ballet evening with Stravinsky's Pulcinella , revivals of Verdi's Falstaff and Rossini's Barbier von Sevilla as well as symphonic concerts, etc. a. with the Bremen Philharmonic.

Christopher Ward has been General Music Director at Theater Aachen since August 1st, 2018 .

In the 2018/2019 season he took over the musical direction of the new production of Jörg Widmann's opera Babylon at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Manuel Brug: No better: Jörg Widmanns and Peter Sloterdijk's little edited “Babylon” new version at the Berlin State Opera. In: Die Welt , March 10, 2019, accessed on March 20, 2019.