Christoph Poppen

The conductor and violinist Christoph Poppen is one of Germany’s finest interpreters of the classical and modern repertoire. He started his career as a violinist and has toured both as a soloist and with the Cherubini Quartet, which he himself founded. In the 1990s, he started a parallel career as a conductor, and from 1995 to 2006 was principal conductor of the prestigious Münchener Kammerorchester. Since then, he has been principal conductor of Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern. Christoph Poppen is known for his open-minded approach to music. He often plays new works alongside classical ones, and has a keen eye for neglected works. Poppen is also recognised for his considerable pedagogical skills, and for a number of years he was a violin professor in Berlin. Today, he is violin and chamber music professor at the academy of music in Munich. He lives in Bavaria and is married to the well-known German soprano Juliane Banse.