Michael Christie became the Virginia G. Piper Music Director of the Phoenix Symphony in August 2005 and Music Director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic in September 2005. With his orchestras, he has embarked on a series of ambitious projects focusing on interdisciplinary collaborations with visual artists, dance companies, and theater groups, as well as contemporary composers such as Gorecki, Ligeti, Adams, Golijov, and Tan Dun. He is also Music Director of the Colorado Music Festival, where he has been much praised for his innovative programming and where festival audiences are now at an all-time high.
Christie made his New York Philharmonic debut in March 2007, stepping in for an ailing Riccardo Muti. In previous seasons, he has conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Houston Symphony, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, Oregon Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony and the Cincinnati Symphony, among many others. In the 2008-2009 season, Christie returned to the St. Louis Symphony and made his debut with the National Symphony Orchestra. In the 2009-2010 season, Christie made his debut conducting "The Ghosts of Versailles" at the Wexford Festival. This production, a collaborative effort with the Opera Theatre of St. Louis and directed by James Robinson, won the 2010 Irish Times Irish Theatre Award for Best Opera. He will conduct the opera again at the Aspen Music Festival in August 2010. In upcoming seasons he will make his debut with the Minnesota Opera and return to the Opera Theatre of St. Louis.
In Europe his career has been equally successful, with past engagements including the DSO Berlin, Orchestre National de Lille, Swedish Radio Symphony, Netherlands Radio Symphony, City of Birmingham Symphony, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, NDR Hannover Orchestra and the Czech Philharmonic. His ties to orchestras in Scandanavia have been particularly strong with engagements in all five countries.
He enjoys a strong profile in Australia, where aside from his role as Chief Conductor of the Queensland Orchestra (which ended in December 2004), he has also conducted the Sydney Symphony, Tasmanian Symphony, Opera Queensland and the Western Australian Symphony in Perth.
Michael Christie has also established an excellent reputation as an opera conductor, and he has regularly conducted both operas and ballet performances at the Opernhaus Zürich. He has a special relationship with the Zurich Opera House, where he was Assistant Conductor to Franz Welser-Möst (a position created especially for him) in the 1997-1998 season. That season he made his highly successful debut conducting performances of "Romeo and Juliet" and a new production of "Hansel and Gretel." He has also worked with the Finnish National Opera, where he conducted "The Marriage of Figaro" in 1999-2000, and with the Queensland Opera where he made his debut conducting "Cosi Fan Tutte" the same season. In March 2004 he made his highly successful opera debut in The Netherlands conducting John Adams’ "The Death of Klinghoffer" with the Rotterdam Philharmonic. In June 2009, Christie made his U.S. debut conducting staged opera with a new production of John Corigliano’s "The Ghosts of Versailles" at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis.
Michael Christie first came to international attention in 1995 when he was awarded a special prize for “Outstanding Potential” at the First International Sibelius Conductors' Competition in Helsinki. Following the competition, he was invited to become an apprentice conductor with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and subsequently worked with Daniel Barenboim in Chicago and at the Berlin State Opera during the 1996-1997 season.
Michael graduated from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music with a bachelor's degree in trumpet performance. He is married to Alexis, a physician, and they have a daughter, Sinclair, born in 2008.
Flying High
Flying High: Devotion to his passions—music and airplanes—has been a lifelong constant for Michael Christie
~Daily Camera, 2001
"For Christie, conducting and flying are opposite sides of a cherished coin. 'It's a matter of structure,' he says. 'A certain level of training is involved in both, but when I'm on the podium, I call the shots. I make decisions about tempo and dynamics and how a piece progresses. As a pilot I follow a set of rules defined by others; it's an experience of necessary discipline.'"
Taking Flight with the Brooklyn Phil
~The New York Sun, 2008
"Michael Christie is no newcomer to challenges. At 32 years old, the music director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic has revamped and refreshed the orchestra's outlook.
And, as he proved in a meeting to discuss the orchestra's upcoming programming, he can make even an interview become an adventure, as it did when Mr. Christie suggested that a reporter from The New York Sun might enjoy an evening flight in his single-engine airplane, a Mooney four-seater.
Having taken the reins of the Philharmonic from Robert Spano in 2005, Mr. Christie supplements his position in Brooklyn with directorships, including one at the Phoenix Symphony and, for fun and convenience, flies himself among jobs. He joined the Civil Air Patrol while in high school, and has been a certified pilot for eight years, extending his licensing to include flying by instruments."