Christian Lindberg (Trombone)
Conductor, Trombonist and Composer In an astonishingly
short time, Christian Lindberg has, alongside his activities as a soloist and
composer, already conducted orchestras including the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the
Orchestra di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Swedish Radio Orchestra, the
Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, the Nordic Chamber Orchestra, the Malmö Symphony
Orchestra, the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie, the Extremadura Orchestra, the Umeå
Symphony Orchestra, the Tiroler Symphonieorchester, Het Noord Nederland Orkest,
Het Gelders Orkest, the Taipei Symphony Orchestra, the Poznań Symphony
Orchestra, Danish Radio Orchestra, the Oulu Symphony Orchestra, the Euscadi
Orchestra, the Maggio Fiorentino, the Haydn Orchestra Bolzano, the Northern
Sinfonia, the Helsinki Philharmonic, the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, the
Sinfonietta Finlandia and the Norwegian Arctic Philharmonic Orchestra in his
very successful opera debut Carmen just recently in Norway. This season
Christian Lindberg begins in his new position as Principal Conductor and
Artistic Advisor of the newly established Norwegian Arctic Philharmonic
Orchestra, an orchestra which enjoys strong Government support. The Arctic
Philharmonic Orchestra will be performing at the Mariinsky Theatre during the
Brass Evenings at the Mariinsky festival. Christian Lindberg and his new
orchestra will also undertake extensive tours of China and Japan this season.
Future guest conducting appearances will take him to the Liverpool
Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, the Irish
National Orchestra, the Royal Flemish Philharmonic Orchestra, the Porto Symphony
Orchestra, the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra, the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, the
Shanghai Opera Orchestra, the Nürnberger Symphoniker, the Iceland Symphony
Orchestra, the Jenaer Philharmonie, the Simón Bolívar Orchestra, the Orchestra
Palau de la Música, the Orquestra Simfònica del Vallès Barcelona, the Riga
Sinfonietta, the Württembergische Philharmonie, the Norrköping Symphony
Orchestra and the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra. Lindberg will continue to record
extensively on BIS, and he will be completing the series started by Leif
Segerstam of the seventeen symphonies by Allan Pettersson with the Norrköping
Symphony Orchestra as well as several projects with the Norwegian Arctic
Philharmonic Orchestra. Lindberg’s earlier recordings with his Nordic Chamber
Orchestra and with the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra have received outstanding
reviews and international critical acclaim.
Christian Lindberg’s achievements on the trombone can only be compared with
those of Paganini on the violin or of Liszt on the piano. Having premiered over
three hundred works for the trombone (including more than thirty composed by
himself), recorded more than seventy solo CDs and having an international solo
competition created in his name in Valencia in Spain, Christian Lindberg is
today nothing less than a living legend. At an early stage of his career he
joined Yo-Yo Ma and Gidon Kremer as the BBC Music Magazine’s soloist of the
year. In 2000, together with Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis, he was voted by an
international poll as one of the greatest brass players of the 20th century. He
was the first Swedish instrumentalist ever to be invited to perform as a soloist
with the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 2007 he
was artist in residence at the Musikverein in Vienna. Christian Lindberg has
worked with practically every major orchestra and conductor in the world today.
For a trombonist to achieve all this before turning fifty is remarkable to say
the least. Lindberg took up the trombone at the age of seventeen having been
inspired by jazz trombonist Jack Teagarden. At the age of eighteen he gained
admission to the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and, having played for only
two years, he was given a position as trombonist in the orchestra of the Royal
Swedish Opera in Stockholm. Aged twenty, he left the orchestra and has since
built up a unique and impressive career as the first trombone soloist in history
as well as embarking on two new enormously successful careers as a conductor and
composer. Today Lindberg’s schedule is fully booked for years in advance.
This schedule combines being Principal Conductor of the Nordic Chamber Orchestra
and the Swedish Wind Ensemble with guest conducting of orchestras such as the
Rotterdam Philharmonic and the Orchestra di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, working on
composition commissions from ensembles such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra,
the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Swedish Radio Chorus and continuing his
solo appearances with orchestras such as the London Philharmonic, the NDR
Orchestra in Germany and Tokyo’s Yomiuri Orchestra. In addition to these
activities, Christian Lindberg makes sure he can devote valuable leisure time to
his family and his wife at their country residence on a peninsula of the
beautiful Stockholm Archipelago.
Christian Lindberg’s career as a composer is remarkable. Already at the age
of six he was composing music, but at the age of sixteen he decided to study
harmony, counterpoint and composition seriously with Torsten Nilsson in
Stockholm. Two years later, he wrote his first official composition, a brass
quintet, but after the first rehearsal Christian was so shocked and disappointed
that he withdrew the piece and resolved never to compose again. This was
roughly the same time that he fell in love with and began to study the trombone
and, instead of composing, he began to orchestrate, arrange and edit music by
other composers. He also decided that his main goal would be to inspire other
composers to write for the trombone. Today he has arranged over one hundred
works for trombone, and over eighty trombone concerti have been dedicated to him
by composers such as Berio, Takemitsu and Xenakis. However, after eager
persuasion from his friend, the composer Jan Sandström, he broke his promise not
to compose. At the age of thirty-nine he accepted a commission from the Musica
Vitae string orchestra. Sandström said “Whatever you do, do not try to prove
anything. Just write whatever comes into your mind without judging it to be good
or bad. Like when a five-year-old does a drawing.” This first piece,
Arabenne, was, to Lindberg’s immense surprise, a huge success with both the
audience and the critics. Immediately after the first performance Christian was
faced with two new commissions and an offer from BIS records to start an
extensive recording project with him as a composer. Today Lindberg has recorded
three portrait CDs of his own music on BIS and has received commissions from
orchestras including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic
Orchestra, the Orchestra di Milano Giuseppe Verdi and the Australian Chamber
Orchestra to name but a few. His pieces Akbank Bunka, Helikon Wasp, The World of
Montuagretta and Mandrake in the Corner have been particularly
successful. Chick’a’Bone Checkout, commissioned by the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra, received three standing ovations in a row at the premiere, something
that had not happened to a contemporary piece in fourteen years at Orchestra
Hall in Chicago. The Chicago Sun Times, Chicago Tribune and New York Times gave
Lindberg stunning reviews for this composition. Today Lindberg is booked up to
2011 with international commissions by orchestras such as Rotterdam
Philharmonic, the Orchestra di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Orchestra of St John Smith
Square, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, the
Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Arctic Philharmonic Orchestra, the Odense
Symphony Orchestra, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, the Bodø Sinfonietta, Share
Music Sweden, the Swedish Wind Ensemble, the Nordic Woodwind Quintet, the
Trondheim Soloists and the Frankfurt Biennale. His own philosophy regarding his
work as a composer is simple: “I do not write in any style whatsoever! I purely
listen to what my brain and soul are telling me, and what I hear I simply put
down on paper. To say anything more about my work would be pretentious
nonsense.”
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