Raphael Christ

The violinist Raphael Christ, who was born in Berlin in 1982, received his first violin lessons at the age of six. His teachers were Abraham Jaffe, Thomas Brandis, Antje Weithaas, and Rainer Kussmaul. Performances have taken him to the Berlin Philharmonie, the Tivoli in Copenhagen, the Rudolfinum in Prague, the Munich Gasteig, and Australia. As a soloist, he has performed with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Berlin, the Czech Philharmonic, and the Copenhagen Philharmonic, working with Claudio Abbado and Daniel Barenboim. At Abbado’s invitation, he played as concertmaster in the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra from 2003 to 2006, followed by an appointment as principal violinist with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra. In 2017, Riccardo Chailly appointed him concertmaster of the orchestra. Raphael Christ also holds the same position with the Bochum Symphony Orchestra and the Cologne Chamber Orchestra.

July 2023