Christian Blex is a German conductor and conducting scholar of the Karajan Academy of the Berliner Philharmoniker as well as assistant to Kirill Petrenko from 2022/23 after having won the “Siemens Conductors Scholarship” in an audition in the Philharmonie Berlin. Next to assisting the chief conductor in concerts and operas with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the two-year scholarship includes leading own concert projects with the scholars of the Karajan Academy of the Berliner Philharmoniker. In February 2023, he had his debut in the Philharmonie Berlin Kammersaal together with the Karajan Academy and Camilla Tilling. The season before he stepped in at short notice for Daniel Harding for a concert with the Karajan Academy in Schloss Esterhazy with the Berliner Philharmoniker solo hornist Stefan Dohr. Next to Kirill Petrenko, Christian has assisted Daniel Harding, Daniel Barenboim, Gustavo Dudamel, Christian Thielemann, Daniele Gatti, Tugan Sokhiev, Sakari Oramo, and Kent Nagano at the Berliner Philharmoniker and Karajan Academy.

As of 2023, Christian is the new assistant conductor of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester. This season he will assist Kirill Petrenko and Ingo Metzmacher as well as leading his own concerts with the orchestra. In 2023, he assisted Daniele Gatti, Daniel Harding for a special project with Martha Argerich at the Rencontres musicales d’Evian, and Jakub Hrusa in addition to having made his debut with the GMJO in Bolzano.

As a conductor, Christian has worked with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Karajan Academy of the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tiroler Symphonieorchester Innsbruck, the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra, the Opole Philharmonic, and the Bergische Symphoniker. In masterclasses he has been taught amongst others by Klaus Mäkelä, Peter Eötvös, Vasily Petrenko, Hannu Lintu, Jorma Panula, James Gaffigan, Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider, Johannes Schlaefli, Nicolas Pasquet, and Eivind Gullberg Jensen and conducted the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Jena Philharmonie, and Janacek Philharmonie Ostrava.

Currently Christian Blex studies in the class of Ole Kristian Ruud at the Norwegian Academy of Music. In 2021/22 he studied as an exchange student in the renowned classes of Prof Johannes Schlaefli at the Zürich Academy of Arts and Prof Nicolàs Pasquet at the University of Music Franz Liszt Weimar. He is a fellow of both the German Forum Dirigieren as well as the Norwegian Dirigentforum.

Christian holds a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from the University of Warwick, a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Cambridge, and is a PhD student at the University of Oxford holding the Alan Turing Institute studentship.