Christopher Lyndon-Gee was nominated for a Grammy in 1998 for "Best Orchestral Performance" for the ground-breaking complete works of Igor Markevitch (Marco Polo releases); while, in 2002, recordings for Naxos of 'Arcana' and other works by Edgard Varese with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra won rave notices worldwide, such as "musically, Christopher Lyndon-Gee blows Boulez away . . . extraordinarily communicative musicianship" from New York's 'Classics Today', and " race out to buy the astounding Lyndon-Gee version . . . able to make these elements cohere with a strength and conviction that challenges the very best" from 'Repertoire', Paris. 'The Gramophone', 'Penguin Guide to Compact Discs', and 'Fanfare' have all given accolades to his work; and Australian critics' organisations named him "Artist of the Year" and "Best Opera Conductor", the latter for his conducting of the world premiere of Larry Sitsky's 'The Golem' at Sydney Opera House.
Also a widely performed composer, Lyndon-Gee was honoured as Composer Laureate of the Onassis Foundation, Athens, in 2001, has won the Adolf Spivakovsky Prize, the "Sounds Australian" Award (three times) and two MacDowell Fellowships in the USA. He is currently working on major orchestral works including 'The Auschwitz Poems' and 'Socrates' Death', the latter commissioned for premiere at Canterbury Cathedral, in his native England, in 2004. During 2003, his setting of an ancient Greek Ode under the title 'The Temple of Athena Pronaea' was premiered in New York, and 'On the Theory of Cosmic Strings' at the contemporary music festival in Odense, Denmark.
Lyndon-Gee studied under Arthur Hutchings and Rudolf Schwartz in Great Britain; Franco Ferrara and Goffredo Petrassi at the Conservatorio S.Cecilia, Rome; and Igor Markevitch at Monte Carlo. Hearing him conduct a student concert in Italy, Leonard Bernstein invited Lyndon-Gee to Tanglewood, where he met Bruno Maderna, becoming the latter's assistant in Milan. Erich Leinsdorf and Maurice Abravanel were also influential on his work. He enjoyed a busy early career as pianist, specializing in contemporary repertoire; over two hundred new works were written specially for him. He and the prominent Italian composer Lorenzo Ferrero launched the contemporary music ensemble 'Fase Seconda' in Turin; Lyndon-Gee also founded the Oxford Sinfonietta, and was chief conductor of the Telford Sinfonia, giving British premieres of composers as diverse as Boulez, Ligeti, Dallapiccola and Shapero, and commissioning and working closely with British composers like Oliver Knussen, Nicola LeFanu, Jonathan Lloyd, Anthony Powers and David Bedford. Today, his hectic freelance career takes him regularly to orchestras in Germany, Italy, England, The Netherlands, Poland, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, the United States and several other countries; he serves also as Head of the Conducting School at New York's Adelphi University, combining this with constant travel.
