Rave reviews for Christian Reif and San Antonio Symphony performances

Christian Reif receives praise for San Antonio Symphony performances (Photo credit: Liz Hafalia)

On January 10 and 11, our conductor Christian Reif led highly praised performances with the San Antonio Symphony and the Mastersingers chorus. The program included: Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 and “Song of Destiny” alongside Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” from “Die Walküre” and selections from the opera “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.”

Read the reviews below!

David Hendricks of San Antonio Express-News praised, “Reif, who recently concluded a three-year term as San Francisco Symphony resident conductor, led a gem of a performance, flawless and electric in its dynamics and tempo shifts… Reif conducted with a combination of sweeping and lightning-quick gestures and obviously knows how to rehearse an orchestra, as the musicians were ready for every detail.”

Mike Greenberg of Incident Light wrote, “Friday in the Tobin Center, Christian Reif had a most impressive guest-conducting debut with the San Antonio Symphony in a program of Brahms and Wagner. Throughout Brahms’ Symphony No. 1, which opened this concert, Mr. Reif evinced an ideal balance of analysis and synthesis. He clearly had studied the score intensely, considered it deeply, mapped a path to each movement’s destination, and commanded the technical means to bring the orchestra along with him. But indicating a more intuitive relationship to the score were often-speedy tempos (with excitingly turbocharged accelerandos), fully expressed dynamics, and generously sculpted phrases that never (well, almost never) interrupted the seamless, natural flow of the music. Then, too, there was the classically Brahmsian sound Mr. Reif extracted from the orchestra – creamy, burnished, poised, weighty but not weighed down.”

Christian Reif’s next engagments bring him to the Ulster Orchestra in Northern Ireland and the Orchestre National de Belgique in Brussels. To view his 2019/20 season dates, click here.