Christian Blex, assistant conductor of the GUSTAV MAHLER JUGENDORCHESTER since 2023, is the winner of the 2025 Herbert von Karajan Young Conductors Award of the Salzburg Festival.

His career took a significant turn after winning the Siemens Conductor Scholarship, which led him to assist Kirill Petrenko at the Berliner Philharmoniker in addition to being a conducting scholar of the prestigious Karajan Academy. While there, Christian debuted with the Karajan Academy, stepping in at short notice for Daniel Harding at Schloss Esterhazy. He performed then in the Große Saal and the Kammermusiksaal of the Philharmonie Berlin. In addition to his work with Kirill Petrenko, Christian has had the opportunity to assist conductors such as 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, both in Berlin and with the GUSTAV MAHLER JUGENDORCHESTER.

Christian worked with prestigious orchestras such as the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Bamberger Symphoniker, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Karajan Academy of the Berliner Philharmoniker, the GUSTAV MAHLER JUGENDORCHESTER, the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Tiroler Symphonieorchester Innsbruck, and the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra. He has participated in masterclasses with renowned conductors including Klaus Mäkelä, Peter Eötvös, Vasily Petrenko, Hannu Lintu, Jorma Panula, James Gaffigan, Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider, Johannes Schlaefli, and Nicolas Pasquet. He has conducted ensembles such as the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, and Stavanger Symphony Orchestra.

Currently, Christian is pursuing his studies under Ole Kristian Ruud at the Norwegian Academy of Music. He participated as an exchange student in the esteemed classes of Prof. Johannes Schlaefli at the Zürich University of Arts and Prof. Nicolás Pasquet at the University of Music Franz Liszt Weimar. He has been a fellow of the German Forum Dirigieren and the Norwegian Dirigentløftet.

Before beginning his conducting studies, Christian Blex completed his bachelor's degree in philosophy, politics and economics at the University of Warwick and his master's degree in economics at the University of Cambridge (Queens' College) as a scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation. Since 2018, he has been pursuing a doctorate in computational social science at the University of Oxford (Balliol College) as an Alan Turing Fellow.

Ole Wuttudal