Christopher Lyndon-Gee

Christopher Lyndon-Gee was nominated for Grammys in 1998 for ‘Best Orchestral Performance’ for the first volume of his groundbreaking series of the complete works of Igor Markevitch (originally released on Marco Polo); in 2003 for the world première recording of George Rochberg’s Symphony No. 5 on Naxos American Classics; and again in 2007 for Hans Werner Henze’s Violin Concertos Nos. 1 and 3, with Peter Sheppard Skærved and the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra (now the Deutsche Radio-Philharmonie). Other recordings have been listed among The Gramophone ‘Editor’s Choice’ in London, Fanfare magazine ‘Outstanding CDs of the Year’, Penguin Guide to Compact Discs’ multiple Rosettes and Key Recordings listings, and he won the Pizzicato prize in Luxembourg. He was named ‘Artist of the Year’ by the Australian National Critics Circle in 1994, and won the Sydney Opera Critics ‘Best Conductor’ award the same year.

Acclaimed recent releases include George Rochberg’s Symphony No. 1 in its première recording (Naxos 8.559214); volume 2 of the complete works of Edgard Varèse (8.557882), including the massive original version of Amériques, for an orchestra of 155 players; and the completion of the Markevitch complete works project, the oratorio Le Paradis perdu, released in 2008.

Frequently invited to conduct at the Warsaw Autumn Festival, he conducted four world premières on a single concert at the Jubilee, Fiftieth anniversary Festival in 2007—new symphonies by the Slovakian composer Roman Berger; Lithuania’s leading female composer Onute Narbutaite; and the Polish composers Jerzy Kornowicz and Aleksand’r Lason. In 2006 he led the closing concert at the November 2006 ‘Pawel Szymanski Festival’, also in Warsaw, featuring six of the major works of Poland’s leading composer of today. In 2008, a four-DVD set including this complete concert was released worldwide by Polskie Wydawnictwo Audiowizualne.

As a composer, Lyndon-Gee was honoured by the Onassis Foundation Prize in 2001, has won the ‘Sounds Australian’ award three times, the Adolf Spivakovsky Prize, and the MacDowell Fellowship twice. In 2006, his setting from Dante’s Paradiso, ‘Frammento del Dante’, was premièred in Florence by the Echo-Klassiek prize-winning German ensemble SingerPur; Musik für SaitenInstrumente has had recent performances in several countries (including Vladivostock, in far eastern Russia); and ‘Over Litton’, after a poem of Edward Storey, was premièred in Wales as a 25th anniversary Presteigne Festival Commission before being taken up widely in New York, Australia and elsewhere.

In progress are forthcoming commissions of a set of songs for Lute and Tenor voice, Lieder des Morgensterns; a new work for SingerPur on a text from Milton; a String Quartet; a second string orchestra work for the German conductor Eckart Schloifer, ‘…und unter den Blättern saß Er, weinend’; a work for ‘Harpsichord Unlimited’ in New York, Etudes canoniques; and a Symphony respectfully dedicated to the aboriginal heritage of Australia, Symphony of Dreamtime.

Lyndon-Gee studied conducting under Rudolf Schwarz in London, and Franco Ferrara in Rome, where Leonard Bernstein heard him conduct a student concert, subsequently inviting him to study at Tanglewood. Here he later worked also under Maurice Abravanel, Erich Leinsdorf and others. He worked as Bruno Maderna’s assistant at La Scala, Milan, later becoming second conductor at the Teatro Regio in Turin, working also with the RAI orchestra in that city. He was co-founder with composer Lorenzo Ferrero of the Ensemble Fase Seconda, who premièred dozens of commissioned new works throughout Italy, Germany, France and at many international festivals. As composer, he studied with Goffredo Petrassi in Rome, Luciano Berio, Sylvano Bussotti and Jean Martinon. Britain’s great musicologist Arthur Hutchings remains a powerful guiding influence, several decades on.