Chief Conductor of the Gävle Symphony Orchestra in Sweden, Christian Reif has established a reputation for his natural musicality, innovative programming, and technical command.

Since 2022, Reif has served as Music Director of the Lakes Area Music Festival, a month-long summer festival in Minnesota featuring the nation’s top classical performers in programming that ranges from opera and chamber music to symphonic performances along with commissioned new works. LAMF believes that high quality arts experiences should be accessible to all and operates on a name-your-price ticket model.

Highlights of Reif’s 2025–26 Season include debut performances with the Nashville Symphony, The Florida Orchestra, Danish Chamber Orchestra, Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, and Australian Youth Orchestra. He returns to conduct the Houston Symphony; National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Canada; Netherlands Radio Philharmonic; Belgrade Philharmonic; and National Radio Orchestra of Romania.

In 2024, Reif won a Grammy Award for the Nonesuch Records album Walking in the Dark, the debut solo album of classical singer Julia Bullock in which he accompanied her on piano and led London’s Philharmonia Orchestra. The album was praised by Gramophone Magazine as “illuminating” and described Reif as providing “excellent support” for Bullock. In 2020 during the pandemic, Reif and Bullock recorded a series of at-home virtual “Songs of Comfort,” ranging from Carole King’s classic “Up on the Roof” to Schubert’s “Wanderers Nachtlied.” NPR Music featured the duo in a Tiny Desk Concert for their special quarantine edition of the series, and The New York Times highlighted them on their Best Classical Music of 2020 list.

From 2016 to 2019, Christian was Resident Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony and Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, after being the Conducting Fellow at the New World Symphony from 2014 to 2016 and at Tanglewood Music Center in 2015 and 2016.

Known around the world for its eclectic repertoire and dazzling virtuosity, the Grammy Award-winning vocal ensemble Chanticleer—under the leadership of Music Director Tim Keeler—has been hailed by the Boston Globe as “breathtaking in its accuracy of intonation, purity of blend, of color and swagger of style.” Founded in San Francisco in 1978 by singer and musicologist Louis Botto, Chanticleer quickly took its place as one of the most prolific recording and touring ensembles in the world, an “orchestra of voices” performing thousands of live concerts and selling more than one million recordings.

Rooted in the Renaissance, Chanticleer’s repertoire has expanded to include a wide range of classical, gospel, jazz, and popular music. With a deep commitment to the commissioning of new compositions and arrangements, Chanticleer foregrounds American repertoire and a distinctively American sound, complementing the group’s signature diversity in terms of membership and genre. The ensemble has dedicated much of its vast recording catalogue to these commissions, garnering Grammy Awards for its recordings of Sir John Tavener’s Lamentations and Praises and the ambitious collection of commissioned works entitled Colors of Love. Chanticleer is the recipient of Chorus America’s Dale Warland Commission Award and the Chorus America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming. The group’s Music Director Emeritus, Joseph H. Jennings, received the Brazeal Wayne Dennard Award for his contribution to the African American choral tradition during his 25-year tenure as both singer and Music Director.

Chanticleer—named for the “clear-singing” rooster in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales—was named Ensemble of the Year by Musical America in 2008 and inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame. The group’s award-winning education programs were recognized with the 2010 Chorus America Education Outreach Award, and have engaged tens of thousands of students since the ensemble began.