Conductor Bio

Christof Perick, guest conductor

Christof Perick is the former Chief Conductor of the Beethoven Orchester Bonn. He was Music Director of Germany’s Nuremberg Philharmonic and Opera from 2006 through 2011 and Music Director of the Charlotte Symphony from 2001 through 2010. Perick completed his post as Principal Guest Conductor of the Dresden Semper Opera at the close of the 2007–08 season. Other former positions include Music Director posts with the Niedersaechsisches Staatsorchester and Staatsoper in Hannover, Germany from 1993–96; the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra from 1992–95; the Badische Staatskapelle Karlsruhe, Germany from 1977–86; and the State Orchestra and Opera Saarbrucken, Germany from 1974–77.

In recent seasons, Perick’s engagements have included productions with the Dresden Semper Oper and the Hamburg Staatsoper, and engagements in North America with the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Washington’s National Symphony, and the Symphonies of Boston, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Houston, Dallas, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Detroit, Seattle, Milwaukee, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, Montreal, and Toronto; summer Festivals that include the Mostly Mozart Festival at New York’s Lincoln Center and the Grant Park Music Festival of Chicago. He conducted the firstever U.S. tour of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, Germany’s leading national Youth Orchestra.

At New York’s Metropolitan Opera, Christof Perick has conducted productions that include Beethoven’s Fidelio, Wagner’s Tannhäuser and Die Meistersinger, Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten, and Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel. He also has led productions including Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer and Parsifal with the Lyric Opera of Chicago; and he conducted the San Francisco Opera in a production of Der fliegende Holländer. Perick also conducted the Los Angeles Music Center productions of Mozart’s Così fan tutte and Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos and the San Diego Opera’s productions of Beethoven’s Fidelio, Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, and recently Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier.

Abroad, recent new productions at Dresden include Puccini’s Il trittico, Weber’s Der Freischütz, Strauss’s Die schweigsame Frau, Salome, and Capriccio; Beethoven’s Fidelio; Wagner’s Parsifal, Tristan und Isolde; and a Ring Cycle at Hannover, and concerts with the Orchestre National de France and the Orchestre National de Lyon.

Future and recent-past engagements include returns to the Cincinnati Symphony, the San Diego Symphony, and the Charlotte Symphony, plus conducting productions at the Cincinnati Opera ( Rosenkavalier and Der fliegende Holländer ), Britten’s War Requiem at the Crane School of Music, SUNY Potsdam, the Chamber Orchestra of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, and the Chautauqua Symphony. Christof Perick became a regular guest on the podium of Staatsoper Hamburg as well as Volksoper Wien.