Christopher Ward

Canadian Songwriter and Recording Artist

Born in 1980, Christopher Ward studied at Oxford University and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London. During this time, he worked with Oxford University Philharmonia and Chorus, Oxford Bach Choir and New Chamber Opera. In 2003, he was awarded the position of Répétiteur Fellow at Scottish Opera and the RSAMD, Glasgow. In 2004, he spent a period working at the Internationales Opernstudio at Zürich Opera before moving to Germany in 2005 to work as Solorepetitor and Kapellmeister at Staatstheater Kassel. Working as music staff on a broad repertoire, he led several new productions, and conducted the Staatsorchester Kassel in a range of concerts as well as directing the theatre’s annual youth orchestra project (TJO). In 2006, he assisted Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic in a production of Wagner’s Das Rheingold at the Aix-en-Provence Music Festival, and continued this association in Berlin and Salzburg (Easter Festival 2007). Christopher Ward became Kapellmeister and Assistant to Kent Nagano at the Bavarian State Opera in 2009. He not only led new productions of Rossini’s La Cenerentola, Haydn’s La fedeltá premiata and Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen, and world premieres of Eötvös’ Die Tragödie des Teufels, Ronchetti’s Narrenschiffe and Srnka`s Make No Noise (opening the international Munich Summer Opera Festival with Ensemble Modern), but also led concerts with the Bayerische Staatsorchester, and Orchesterakademie, and the Opera Studios of Munich and La Scala, Milan. In 2014 Christopher Ward became 1. Kapellmeister at the Saarländisches Staatstheater. Here he led new productions of Weber’s Der Freischütz, Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra, Rigoletto, and Nabucco, Dvořák’s Rusalka, Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges and Daphnis et Chloé, Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Golden Cockerel, Rameau’s Platée, Obst's Solaris and Haas’ Bluthaus, as well as a number of revivals, ballets and symphonic concerts. As guest conductor, he has directed performances at the Staatsoper Hamburg, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Komische Oper, Oper Graz, Salzburger Landstheater, Staatsoper Prag, Staatstheater Braunschweig, Staatstheater Mainz, Staatstheater Darmstadt and Theater Bremen, as well as conducting concerts with the Bremer Philhormoniker, Staatsorchester Braunschweig, Brandenburger Symphoniker, Cottbus Philharmonic, Neue Lausitz Philharmonic and Altenburg-Gera Philharmonic orchestras. He also directed the world premiere of Cekovska’s opera Dorian Gray at the Slovak National Theatre and Prague Spring International Music Festival 2015, and recently released a CD of Schreker's orchestral music with the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie for Capriccio. A further recording of the complete symphonic music of Hans Rott will appear shortly for the same label. In 2019 he took over at short notice the world premiere of Jörg Widmann’s Babylon for an indisposed Daniel Barenboim at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin. In 2018 he was appointed Generalmusikdirektor of Theater Aachen and Sinfonieorchester Aachen.