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CHRISTIAN  ZACHARIAS - Conductor and pianist

Christian Zacharias was appointed artistic director of the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne in 2000. Born in 1950, he took his first piano lessons with Irene Slavin. After completing his music studies with Vlado Perlemuter in Paris, he took part in a number of international competitions, winning second prizes in Geneva in 1969 and at the Van Cliburn Competition in 1973, and first prize at the Ravel Competition in 1975. This paved the way to a succession of highly prestigious engagements with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Boston Symphony, the New York Philharmonic and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw.

An extensively honoured discography and performances at the world’s major festivals have added to his musical renown. He devotes a great deal of his time to chamber music.

Christian Zacharias regularly directs the English and Scottish Chamber Orchestras, the Nederlands Kamerorkest, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra.

Christian Zacharias celebrates the Millennium and his 50th birthday by performing and conducting the complete Mozart piano concerti as well as other great classics with some of the most prestigious ensembles in the worlds' great music capitals.

Christian Zacharias was principal guest pianist and conductor at the summer 2001 edition of the Tibor Varga Festival in Sion, Switzerland. In partnership with the Museums of the Canton of Valais, the Festival chose the impressive surroundings of a former prison known as the Ancien Pénitencier to present a contemporary art exhibition on the theme of repetition, featuring works proposed by Christian Zacharias.