Christoph-Mathias Mueller

Swiss conductor Christoph-Mathias Mueller has won unusual critical acclaim for his partnership with Germany's Göttinger Symphonie Orchester (Göttingen Symphony Orchestra). He has also been active as a guest conductor in orchestral music and opera, including in Russia, typically not so hospitable to Western conductors. Mueller was born on February 26, 1967, in Chiclayo, Peru, but was raised in Switzerland. His first studies were on violin in Basel, Switzerland, and he completed a full course of violin training. He switched to conducting, enrolling in the master's program in music at the University of Cincinnati, and his commitment deepened when he won a place as Conducting Fellow at the famed Tanglewood summer festival in Massachusetts, studying with Seiji Ozawa, Leon Fleisher, and Robert Spano. After a stint as assistant to Vladimir Ashkenazy at the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester in Berlin, he found his course confirmed when he won the International Conducting Competition in Cadaqués, Spain in 2000. The following year, he served as assistant conductor to Claudio Abbado with the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, following Abbado to the Lucerne Festival Orchestra from 2003 to 2005. He also served as music director of the Cairo Symphony Orchestra during this period. In 2005 Mueller was named principal conductor of Germany's Göttinger Symphonie Orchester (Göttingen Symphony Orchestra), adding the title of general music director to his résumé in 2007. Mueller has championed contemporary music, conducting premieres of works by such composers as Rudolf Kelterborn, Isabel Mundry, Gérard Zinsstag, and Uljas Pulkkis. At the other end of the chronological spectrum, he and the orchestra have joined with the historical-performance group Concerto Köln and soprano Simone Kermes for an album of bel canto operatic selections. Mueller has also championed the music of little-known Soviet composer Alexander Weprik, leading to several engagements in Russia including several at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow; these included new productions of Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus and Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier. Mueller has also conducted operatic performances of works by Verdi, Mozart, and Haydn in Göttingen. He has made guest conducting appearances with the SWR Sinfonieorchester in Germany, the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana in Switzerland, the Czech Philharmonic, the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, the Russian National Orchestra, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales as well. Mueller has recorded for the Sony Classical, NMC, Cedille, MDG, Pan Classics, Paladino, and Naxos labels; a 2018 release on the latter label of music by Wolfgang Rihm, featuring violinist Tianwa Yang and the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, brought the conductor his second ECHO Klassik award, the most prestigious classical recording award of the German recording industry.
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