Christopher Zimmerman, Conductor
Selected Reviews
Michael Andor Brodeur writes,
“Among the things to admire about the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra is its commitment to variety. Avoiding the obvious seems like a guiding principle for conductor and music director Christopher Zimmerman … Saturday night’s concert at George Mason University … represented a particularly well-struck balance: two sizable portions of music from Syrian American composer Malek Jandali, including the world premiere of his Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra, followed by a heroic dose of Beethoven"
Washington Classical Review
Charles Downey writes,
"The Fairfax Symphony Orchestra opened its fall season with a gala-style concert Saturday night. The orchestra, amped up to around 80 musicians, sounded full-bodied in grandly romantic selections by Wagner and Strauss.
Soprano Renée Fleming, in a gown of autumnal metallic orange and switching to demure lilac after intermission, brought her star power to GMU Center for the Arts in her FSO debut.
Music director Christopher Zimmerman led a surging rendition of the Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde.
In a somewhat muted performance of Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs, Zimmerman cushioned his soloist with carefully calibrated washes of orchestral color.
A more light-hearted second half balanced the metaphysical music that came before it, starting with a rip-roaring performance of Strauss’s early tone poem Don Juan, composed 60 years prior to the Four Last Songs. 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."
Washington Classical Review
Joan Reinthaler writes,
"The Fairfax Symphony Orchestra opened its season with a smashing concert performance of Puccini’s “Saturday night at the George Mason Center for the Arts…. Placed onstage behind the singers, the playing of the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra was terrific. Zimmerman deftly adjusted dynamics and timing, pacing the performance with a singer’s sensibilities. Dynamics were a more delicate challenge and Zimmerman met it beautifully, never overwhelming the voices, allowing diction to emerge clearly while still providing both bumptious excitement and dramatic tension."
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Janelle Gelfand writes,
"A stunning violinist and a fine candidate for music director added up to another exceptional concert by the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra in the second week of its “Summermusik” festival….It was breathtaking, from start to finish. ..Zimmerman was an excellent partner, who seamlessly followed the soloist’s many changes of mood and tempo, and kept an excellent balance. The crowd was instantly on its feet. ..His animated leadership in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, which concluded the concert, may offer the search committee the most clues about his musical gifts. Zimmerman’s tempos were galvanizing, and he threw himself into every note. The second movement Allegretto was masterfully shaped. I enjoyed the pianissimo (extreme softness) he achieved at the start, building with each variation. The scherzo movement was brisk, and the conductor knew just how to allow its pastoral sections to breathe."
The Washington Post
Stephen Brookes writes,
"Watch out for Christopher Zimmerman.
The music director of the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra has been injecting adrenaline into this ensemble since he took over in 2009. And the resulting performances — to judge by Saturday’s imaginative, high-octane concert at George Mason University’s Center for the Arts — have made the Fairfax players a serious force to be reckoned with.
Take the overture to Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” which opened the program. Opened, actually, is too mild a word: The work shot out of the gate with so much heady momentum it blew your ears back. But there was no sacrifice of detail or elegance, either. Zimmerman conducts with a kind of coiled ferocity — you sensed he might pounce into the orchestra at any moment, to carry off the weak and slow — and the playing crackled with electricity and almost physical power.
That, more or less, was the tone throughout the evening. Charles Ives’s contemplative “The Unanswered Question” received a beautifully nuanced performance, and the evening closed with a dramatic, big-boned account of Brahms’s Symphony No. 1, vividly drawn and riveting to its core….."
The Washington Post
Anne Midgette writes,
"…the Barber Violin Concerto was involved and warm, and Zimmerman whipped the final piece, Sibelius’s First Symphony, to a veritable crackle of energy by the last movement. Sibelius is a good fit for this orchestra, which seemed to respond to his big, warm melodies."
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Donald Rosenberg writes,
"Christopher Zimmerman showed up on the orchestra’s podium Friday at Severance Hall and catapulted works by Mendelssohn, Ginastera, Elgar and Haydn to the heights. This was some of the finest conducting at Severance Hall in recent years. The fact that the orchestra responded so brilliantly to its guest’s artistry (which) suggests a longing for leadership of such taste, energy and emotional generosity. Zimmerman … was sensitive to the stylistic needs of each piece and clear in conveying his ideas to the musicians. He is a conductor whose ideas begin with the composer…. Zimmerman simply immersed himself in the score’s (Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro for Strings) passion and pastoral beauty, conducting without baton like a chamber musician in intense conversation with inspired colleagues. The playing had warmth, vigor and biting articulation. Have these strings ever sounded better?… Has the entire orchestra ever sounded better?”
The Daily Telegraph, London
Niel Tierney writes,
"Zimmerman shaped the broodingly expressive paragraphs (of Shostakovich’s Tenth) with great care, using a fair measure of rhythmic flexibility and such haunting moments as the transition of the second subject from flute to violins had considerable atmosphere. The scherzo, crackling with venom, highlighted the orchestra’s flair for highly charged musical rhetoric without engulfing its evocative tone-painting, and the finale put the inherent nobility of the work into perspective.”
The Daily Telegraph, London
Geoffrey Norris writes,
“The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra introduced the young British conductor Christopher Zimmerman…. In such a familiar work as the “New World” symphony, it was refreshing to hear the music re-invigorated through Mr. Zimmerman’s clear sighted approach, one in which he allowed nothing to detract from a well-conceived plan and a perceptive instinct for instrumental detail. Contact with the orchestra seemed immediate, the result a reading in which the playing responded keenly to gestures which themselves were expressive both of the symphony’s fiery vigour and of its finer nuances…. Mr. Zimmerman also revealed a sharp interpretative profile and control of orchestral timbre in Sibelius’ “Finlandia”, throwing the music into sharp relief and contributing to this most auspicious London debut.”
The Edmonton Sunday Sun
John Charles writes,
"The evening’s star was actually guest conductor Christopher Zimmerman. The evening opened with Verdi’s La Forza del Destino Overture, a work the Edmonton SO has played many times but never with such impassioned boldness and clarity … but the great event was Brahms’ First Symphony. Zimmerman gave the work great space and brought out many details, especially in the cellos and double basses. The strings have seldom sounded sweeter and the brooding opening was properly weighty. The troubled slow movement was beautiful, and every phrase sang. The finale had unusual breadth and nobility right on to the blazing final pages. This was a masterly and mature performance and many in the audience gave Zimmerman a standing ovation.”