Prof. Christoph-Mathias Mueller

Zurich University of the Arts

Christoph-Mathias Mueller is a distinguished conductor and the recipient of the prestigious Opus Klassik Award for Best Symphonic Recording. He serves as the Artistic Director of the Murten Classics Festival in Switzerland and is the Head of the Orchestral Conducting Department at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK).

Born in Peru in 1967, Mueller grew up in Switzerland and studied violin in Basel. He earned his Master of Music from the University of Cincinnati and has spent many years living and working in Germany and around the globe.

Mueller gained international recognition in 2000 after winning the International Conducting Competition in Cadaqués, Spain. He served as a Conducting Fellow at Tanglewood, working with renowned figures such as Seiji Ozawa, Robert Spano, and Leon Fleisher. In 2001, Claudio Abbado invited him to be the Assistant Conductor for the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, a role he held until 2005.

After a year as Chief Conductor of the Cairo Symphony Orchestra in Egypt, he became Chief Conductor of the Göttingen Symphony Orchestra in Germany, where he later assumed the role of General Music Director. Their collaboration, which lasted 13 years, garnered two ECHO Klassik awards in 2013 and 2017.

As a Guest Conductor, Mueller maintained a close association with Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater until 2014. His versatility in contemporary music has led prominent composers, including Dieter Schnebel, Kenneth Hesketh, Rudolf Kelterborn, Isabel Mundry, and Detlev Glanert, to entrust him with their works. In recent years, he has focused particularly on rediscovering the music of composers who suffered under oppressive regimes, such as Ursula Mamlok, Alexander Veprik, and Mikhail Nosyrev.

His recent recordings feature orchestral works by Alexander Veprik with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, as well as violin concertos by Wolfgang Rihm, performed with ECHO prize-winner Tianwa Yang. Mueller’s extensive discography includes several highly praised recordings for Sony Classical, including the album “Bel Canto” with Simone Kermes and the original sound specialists at Concerto Köln.

Mueller regularly performs with internationally renowned orchestras, including the Czech Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Lyon, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Tonhalle- Orchester Zürich, Sinfonieorchester Basel, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, DSO Berlin, and SWR Symphony Orchestra, along with orchestras in Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Bochum, Weimar, Jena, and Wuppertal. Last season, he conducted the Basque National Orchestra in San Sebastián, the Slovak Philharmonic, and a highly successful premiere at the Leipzig Opera with the Gewandhausorchester.