German conductor takes Minnesota
mainChristian Reif has been named music director of the Lakes Area Music Festival of Minnesota, starting now.
They’ve never had one before.
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I appreciate your enthusiasm, Norman but this hardly constitutes “taking” Minnesota. It’s a big state after all, and this is a very small festival. I mean no disrespect to the performers.
It’s also a fairly new festival and they have had “Artistic Directors” and an “Explore Music! Director” just not an official Music Director per se. I sense that it has been much chamber music but a growing emphasis on orchestral, hence the new position. Brainerd MN is a popular vacation and second-residence area with an emphasis on the water (lakes and rivers, including the Mississippi River) and is one of those destinations where the summer population is fairly enormous (and more monied) compared to the “real” permanent population. I gather many of the musicians are drawn from the Minnesota Orchestra and St Paul Chamber Orchestra, so I have no reason to think the music making is anything other than first rate. A good gig for a rising conductor.
He has lovely tousled locks and sexy stubble. He must be a great conductor.
Based on my experience attending a concert he guest-conducted at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival a few summers ago, he comes across as highly intelligent, capable of tracing large structures with inexorable sweep without losing sight of the details, and he has a dynamic podium presence. Let’s not make appearance-based assumptions about either his qualifications or the intentions of the festival management.
He’s actually quite talented. Julliard trained. Read his bio and then pass judgement. https://www.christianreif.eu/
Let’s rank conductors by order of good looks and sex appeal. Carlos Kleiber tops my list.
James Levine
lol
Jeffrey Tate
Minnesota has 10,000 lakes. What lakes is it in the area of?
The what festival?
“GERMAN CONDUCTOR TAKES MINNESOTA”
This headline makes it sound like he marched in with troops and Panzers….
Wouldn’t have been the first time.
I hear the next Superman movie is going to black, directed by a black, maybe music by a black composer too.
Actually his brother Thomas is concertmaster of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Now here I had thought I missed some major news for the MN Orchestra…