Christian Gansch
Christian Gansch was born in Austria in 1960 and studied piano and violin at the Hochschule in Vienna. From 1977 to 1981 he was leader of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra and on their international tours often performed as soloist. From 1981 to 1989 he was a member of the Munich Philharmonic under Sergiu Celibidache, and subsequently worked as a senior producer for Deutsche Grammophon, collaborating closely with artists such as Pierre Boulez, Mikhail Pletnev, Myung-Whun Chung, James Levine, Seiji Ozawa and Claudio Abbado.
During his time as a professional violinist, Gansch studied conducting, and in 1985 he was asked to rehearse Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and The Firebird for the Deutsche Oper Berlin. His public conducting debut followed shortly afterwards when he was engaged for a series of concerts with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra at the Berlin Philharmonie.
Gansch has conducted numerous European orchestras, including the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Flanders, the MDR Sinfonieorchester, the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, the NDR Sinfonieorchester, the Prague Chamber Orchestra and the Munich Chamber Orchestra.
Gansch's 1998 debut with the Russian National Orchestra was highly praised. He has subsequently guest conducted the orchestra on several occasions and in January 2003 was invited to join the RNO's Conductor Collegium. He also works on a regular basis with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and will make his first appearance at the Proms with them in 2003. Other forthcoming engagements include debut concerts with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.