Christian Blex

Christian Blex is a German conductor and winner of the 2025 Herbert von Karajan Young Conductors Award at the Salzburg Festival. He is Principal Guest Conductor of the Malmö Symphony Orchestra.

His international career gained significant momentum after receiving the Siemens Conductors Scholarship, which led to his appointment as assistant to Kirill Petrenko at the Berliner Philharmoniker, as assistant, and as a conducting scholar at the prestigious Karajan Academy in 2022, as well as becoming the assistant conductor of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester in 2023. 

In these roles, he worked closely with Kirill Petrenko and collaborated with distinguished conductors including Daniel Harding, Daniel Barenboim, Gustavo Dudamel, Christian Thielemann, Jakub Hrůša, Tugan Sokhiev, Daniele Gatti, Alan Gilbert, Sakari Oramo, Hannu Lintu, Ingo Metzmacher and Kent Nagano. During this period, he made his debut with the Karajan Academy, stepping in at short notice for Daniel Harding at Schloss Esterházy, and also appeared at the Philharmonie Berlin, conducting in both the Großer Saal and the Kammermusiksaal.

Recent engagements have brought him to the podium of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Karajan Academy of the Berliner Philharmoniker, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Tiroler Symphonieorchester Innsbruck, Kyiv Symphony Orchestra, Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, Opole Philharmonic, Bergische Symphoniker, Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Aarhus Symfoniorkester, Odense Symfoniorkester, Orchestra Haydn, Brussels Philharmonic. Operatic and recording highlights include Don Giovanni at Istanbul State Opera and a recording with the Bamberger Symphoniker for Bayerischer Rundfunk in April 2026.

The 2026/27 season features engagements with the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien at the Salzburg Festival, Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Norwegian National Opera Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bochumer Symphoniker, Danish Philharmonic Orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya, alongside his continuing work as Principal Guest Conductor of the Malmö Symphony Orchestra. The season also marks two major operatic debuts: Torsten Rasch's Die wunderbaren Jahre at Semper Zwei in Dresden and Schreker's Der ferne Klang at the Tiroler Festspiele Erl in a new production directed by Calixto Bieito.

After studying conducting with Ole Kristian Ruud at the Norwegian Academy of Music, Christian continued his training with Prof. Johannes Schlaefli at the Zurich University of the Arts and Prof. Nicolás Pasquet at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar as an exchange student during the 2021/22 academic year. He is a former fellow of the German Forum Dirigieren and was a member of the Norwegian Dirigentforum.

Alongside his musical studies, Christian pursued an academic career in economics and the social sciences, earning degrees in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Warwick and in Economics from the University of Cambridge, before completing a PhD at the University of Oxford as an Alan Turing Institute Scholar.