Christopher Zimmerman – Conductor
Christopher Zimmerman is currently Music Director of two American regional orchestras: the Fairfax Symphony and the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony.
Under his artistic leadership the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra has received consistent praise from the media. In a recent 2023 concert featuring soprano Renee Fleming, chief critic of the Washington Post, Michael Andor Brodeur noted that: “carried along atop maestro Christopher Zimmerman’s deeply engaged and emotionally attentive orchestra, Fleming made Strauss’s well-worn songs feel fresh, new and alive”.
Of the same concert the Washington Classical Review critic wrote: “Music director Christopher Zimmerman led a surging rendition of the Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde”. And of Strauss’ tone-poem in the second half: “The violin sections, twenty-four players strong, played the hero’s main theme with adventurous daring. Solos for violin and oboe sang sweetly in the amorous episodes, with the other heroic theme called out forcefully by the four horns. The piece, exceptionally challenging across the orchestra, sounded polished and expansive”. Another Washington Post reporter, Stephen Brookes, has commented: “Zimmerman has been injecting adrenalin into this ensemble…(and has) made the Fairfax players a serious force to be reckoned with.”
In 2018 Mr. Zimmerman was invited to Vietnam to conduct the Ho Chi Minh Symphony in Saigon and, in 2019, was re-invited to that orchestra as well as making his debut with the Vietnamese National Symphony in Hanoi.
Vietnam aside, Zimmerman has been engaged as a guest conductor all over the world, with the London Symphony, the Royal Philharmonic, the Prague Symphony, the Slovak Philharmonic, the Turku Philharmonic, the Seoul Philharmonic, the Mexico City Philharmonic, the Caracas Philharmonic, National Orchestra of Rio de Janeiro, the Shenzhen Symphony…and many others.
A champion of contemporary music, Zimmerman has conducted over 60 premieres for orchestra by nationally and internationally recognized composers, many of which are World and U.S. premieres. He also enjoys presenting less “mainstream” orchestral concerts, often in collaboration with dance, theatre, and video.
Under Zimmerman’s direction, the FSO was honored as the 2013 winner of Washington Area Music Award (WAMMIE) for best classical orchestra. In 2011, Zimmerman was selected as the first place winner in the professional orchestra category of “The American Prize in Conducting”, an award for nationwide performances for conductors of all genres and categories. His U.S. operatic conducting debut, of Carlisle Floyd’s “Susannah”, won first place in the National Opera Association competition, as did Bright Sheng’s “Song of Majnun”, which Zimmerman led two years later.
Zimmerman’s career also extensively embraces teaching and working with student orchestras and conductors. In 1993 he joined the conducting faculty at the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati where he was Music Director of their concert orchestra, and in 1999 he was appointed Director of Orchestral Studies at the Hartt School as well as Music Director of the Hartt Symphony. From 2013 to 2018 Zimmerman was the Principal Conductor of the American Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, and is now their Principal Guest Conductor. He also runs a conducting workshop with the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony.
Christopher Zimmerman graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in Music, and received his Master’s degree in conducting from the University of Michigan under the tutelage of Gustav Meier. He studied with Seiji Ozawa and Gunther Schuller at Tanglewood and served as an apprentice to Andrew Davis and the Toronto Symphony, and subsequently as assistant conductor to Vaclav Neumann and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in Prague.
Christopher Zimmerman, Conductor
Biography
Christopher Zimmerman is currently Music Director of two American orchestras: the Fairfax Symphony and the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony.
Under his artistic leadership the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra has received consistent praise from the media. In a recent 2023 concert featuring soprano Renee Fleming, chief critic of the Washington Post, Michael Andor Brodeur noted that: “carried along atop maestro Christopher Zimmerman’s deeply engaged and emotionally attentive orchestra, Fleming made Strauss’s well-worn songs feel fresh, new and alive”.
Of the same concert the Washington Classical Review critic wrote: “Music director Christopher Zimmerman led a surging rendition of the Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde”. And of Strauss’ tone-poem in the second half: “The violin sections, twenty-four players strong, played the hero’s main theme with adventurous daring. Solos for violin and oboe sang sweetly in the amorous episodes, with the other heroic theme called out forcefully by the four horns. The piece, exceptionally challenging across the orchestra, sounded polished and expansive”. Another Washington Post reporter, Stephen Brookes, has commented: “Zimmerman has been injecting adrenalin into this ensemble…(and has) made the Fairfax players a serious force to be reckoned with.”
In 2018 Mr. Zimmerman was invited to Vietnam to conduct the Ho Chi Minh Symphony in Saigon and, in 2019, was re-invited to that orchestra as well as making his debut with the Vietnamese National Symphony in Hanoi.
Vietnam aside, Zimmerman has been engaged as a guest conductor all over the world, with the London Symphony, the Royal Philharmonic, the Prague Symphony, the Slovak Philharmonic, the Turku Philharmonic, the Seoul Philharmonic, the Mexico City Philharmonic, the Caracas Philharmonic, National Orchestra of Rio de Janeiro, the Shenzhen Symphony…and many others.
A champion of contemporary music, Zimmerman has conducted over 60 premieres for orchestra by nationally and internationally recognized composers, many of which are World and U.S. premieres. He also enjoys presenting less “mainstream” orchestral concerts, often in collaboration with dance, theatre, and video.
Under Zimmerman’s direction, the FSO was honored as the 2013 winner of Washington Area Music Award (WAMMIE) for best classical orchestra. In 2011, Zimmerman was selected as the first place winner in the professional orchestra category of “The American Prize in Conducting”, an award for nationwide performances for conductors of all genres and categories. His U.S. operatic conducting debut, of Carlisle Floyd’s “Susannah”, won first place in the National Opera Association competition, as did Bright Sheng’s “Song of Majnun”, which Zimmerman led two years later.
Zimmerman’s career also extensively embraces teaching and working with student orchestras and conductors. In 1993 he joined the conducting faculty at the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati where he was Music Director of their concert orchestra, and in 1999 he was appointed Director of Orchestral Studies at the Hartt School as well as Music Director of the Hartt Symphony. From 2013 to 2018 Zimmerman was the Principal Conductor of the American Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, and is now their Principal Guest Conductor. He also runs a conducting workshop with the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony.
Christopher Zimmerman graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in Music, and received his Master’s degree in conducting from the University of Michigan under the tutelage of Gustav Meier. He studied with Seiji Ozawa and Gunther Schuller at Tanglewood and served as an apprentice to Andrew Davis and the Toronto Symphony, and subsequently as assistant conductor to Vaclav Neumann and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in Prague.