“Michael Christie has been named music director of the New West Symphony Orchestra” in Thousand Oaks, California, reads an unsigned article in Wednesday’s (1/2) Ventura County Star. “Christie, most recently the music director of the Minnesota Opera, led the orchestra during last year’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ concerts [and] will conduct the orchestra’s … concerts in April [featuring] Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 [and] Schumann’s Symphony No. 4. Christie, who led the Minnesota Opera for eight seasons, earned four Grammy nominations for the live recording of the contemporary opera, ‘The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs’ by Mason Bates. He premiered this work with the Santa Fe Opera in 2017.” In 2018, Christie led the world premiere of Huang Ruo’s An American Soldier with Opera Theatre of St. Louis, and previously he was music director of the Phoenix Symphony and Brooklyn Philharmonic, and chief conductor of the Queensland Orchestra in Australia. In a press release, New West Symphony Orchestra Chief Executive Officer Natalia Staneva stated, “Michael’s experience producing diverse, multimedia productions was particularly interesting to us…. This is unique and valuable experience which we believe will present opportunities for New West Symphony to expand into new types of performances as we celebrate our 25th anniversary.”
Posted January 3, 2019
