Christopher Ward
Christopher Ward studied at Oxford University and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Since 2018, he has held the title of Music Director of Theater Aachen and the Aachen Symphony Orchestra.
In 2003, Christopher was awarded the position of Répétiteur Fellow at Scottish Opera and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. He later worked at Zürich Opera, before moving to Germany to work as Solorepetitor and Conductor at Kassel State Theater. Here, he led several new productions and conducted the Kassel State Orchestra in a range of concerts, also directing the theatre’s annual Youth Orchestra project. In 2006, he assisted Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic in a production of The Ring Cycle at the Aix-en-Provence Music Festival; he continued this association in Berlin and Salzburg. He later became Conductor and Assistant to Kent Nagano at the Bavarian State Opera, where he conducted various new productions including world premieres of Eötvös’ The Tragedy of the Devil, Ronchetti’s Ship of Fools and Srnka’s Make No Noise (opening the International Munich Summer Opera Festival with Ensemble Modern). He also led concerts with the Bavarian State Orchestra, Orchestra Academy, and the Opera Studios of Munich and La Scala, Milan. In 2014, he became Conductor at the Saarland State Theatre.
As Guest Conductor, Christopher has directed performances at venues including the Hamburg State Opera, Komische Oper Berlin, Salzburg State Theatre, Prague State Opera and Slovak National Theatre. He has conducted concerts with the Staatskapelle Halle, Bremer Philharmoniker and Oldenburg State Orchestra, among others. He has also directed world premieres at Prague Spring International Music Festival and Bregenz Summer Festival, and in 2019 took over at short notice the world premiere of Widmann’s Babylon at the Berlin State Opera.
With labels Naxos and Capriccio, Christopher has recorded several highly regarded CDs, collaborating with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, German State Philharmonic of Rhineland-Palatinate and Aachen Symphony Orchestra; these have received multiple Opus Klassik nominations. In 2022, he released world premiere recordings of the music of Leo Blech and recorded the soundtrack for an appearance in Fatih Akin’s box-office hit Rheingold.
