Christian Arming - NOSPR

Christian Arming has been Music Director of the Liège Royal Philharmonic / Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège (OPRL) since September 2011 to 2019 and is Musical Director of the Hirsohima Symphony Orchestra sinc 2024. 

Born in Vienna in 1971, Christian Arming grew up in Hamburg. After studying with Leopold Hager, he worked closely with Seiji Ozawa from 1992 to 1998, conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood and the New Japan Philharmonic in Tokyo. 

Christian Arming recalls being fortunate enough to have the opportunity to hear, in his home town, week after week, orchestras with a typically Viennese sound and with a worldwide reputation in the great Germanic repertoire (Richard Strauss, Bruckner, Mahler, etc.), while also discovering what Nikolaus Harnoncourt was bringing to the development of historical performance practice. In Liège, he hopes to highlight the Central European repertoire, take advantage of the tradition the OPRL has developed in the field of contemporary music, share his knowledge of Slav – and in particular Czech – music, and expand the French repertoire that is so dear to the Orchestra.

In 1995, at 24 years of age, Christian Arming became the youngest conductor ever appointed to head the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra in Ostrava, a post he held until 2002. He went on to become Chief Conductor of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra (2001–2004) and, from 2003 to 2013, of the New Japan Philharmonic (Tokyo), where he succeeded Seiji Ozawa. Christian Arming has conducted more than 50 orchestras all over the world, in Berlin, Vienna, Frankfurt, Leipzig, Stuttgart, Strasbourg, Munich, Rome, Geneva, Boston, Cincinnati, Houston, and elsewhere. He is in great demand for opera and has conducted in Salzburg, Cincinnati (Britten's Turn of the Screw), Trieste (R. Strauss's Rosenkavalier), Lucerne(La Bohème), Verona (Salome, Elektra), Strasbourg (Prince Igor), Frankfurt (The Flying Dutchman, Don Giovanni, Jenůfa), Tokyo (Leonore, Jeanne d’Arc, Lohengrin, Die Fledermaus, Eine florentinische Tragödie, The Makropoulos Case).

In a little over twelve years he has recorded works by Brahms, Beethoven, Mahler, Janáček, and Schmidt (for the most part with the New Japan Philharmonic) on Fontec and Arte Nova/BMG, Escaich with the Orchestre National de Lyon (on Universal/Accord). And more recently, with the OPRL, Franck (Fuga Libera), Saint-Saëns (3CD; Zig-Zag Territoires /Outhere) and Gouvy (Palazzetto Bru Zane)