Christian Lindberg’s achievements for the trombone have been compared to those of Paganini for the violin and Liszt for the piano. In September 2015, Classic FM voted him “The Greatest Brass Player in History”, and in 2016 he received the International Classical Music Award – Artist of the Year, following previous recipients including Esa-Pekka Salonen, Krzysztof Penderecki and Charles Dutoit.

The first trombonist to build a truly major international career as a classical soloist, Lindberg has premiered more than 300 works, including over 135 major concertos, and appeared on more than 150 solo recordings. An international solo competition – the Christian Lindberg International Solo Competition for Brass & Percussion – now bears his name. His pioneering work fundamentally changed the position of the trombone on the international concert stage.

Yet what began as an unprecedented career as a trombone soloist has developed into something considerably broader. Today Lindberg combines three parallel artistic identities – trombonist, conductor and composer – at the highest international level.

CONDUCTOR

Lindberg’s conducting career has taken him to many of the world’s major concert halls, including the Musikverein in Vienna, Großes Festspielhaus Salzburg, Suntory Hall, Beijing’s National Centre for the Performing Arts, Tonhalle Düsseldorf, Meistersingerhalle Nürnberg and the Beethovenfest Bonn, working with orchestras throughout Europe, Asia, Australasia and the Americas.

His long-term orchestral leadership positions have included the Nordic Chamber Orchestra (2004–2011), Swedish Wind Ensemble (2005–2012), Arctic Philharmonic (2009–2019) and Israel NK Orchestra (2016–2021). These partnerships have encompassed major international tours, appearances at leading European festivals and venues, and extensive recording projects.

One of the defining projects of Lindberg’s conducting career has been his long collaboration with the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra devoted to the symphonies of Allan Pettersson. Beginning in 2010, the project ultimately resulted in performances and recordings of the complete symphonic cycle. In 2026, Lindberg and the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra were selected as one of the three finalists for the Gramophone Classical Music Award in the Orchestral category for their BIS recording of Pettersson’s Symphonies Nos. 3 & 8, alongside Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Other major conducting relationships have included the Nürnberger Symphoniker, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Flemish Philharmonic, Swedish Chamber Orchestra, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Ulster Orchestra, Taipei Symphony Orchestra, Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Jena Philharmonic, Basque National Orchestra and many others.

The coming period marks a further expansion of Lindberg’s conducting career. In 2026 he makes his conducting debut with the Stuttgart Philharmonic and conducts the world premiere of his own Third Symphony with the Nürnberger Symphoniker, continuing a long and highly productive relationship with the orchestra. Further projects include appearances with the Norrlands Opera Orchestra, Västerås Sinfonietta, Transylvanian National Philharmonic and Prince of Denmark Brass & Percussion, alongside major international projects in Japan and elsewhere.

COMPOSER

Lindberg’s career as a composer began almost by accident with Arabenne for trombone and strings, written in 1997–98. What started as an experiment rapidly developed into a substantial parallel career.

He has since composed more than 50 works, many written on commission for leading orchestras, festivals and performers. Commissioners have included the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Swedish Chamber Orchestra, hr-Sinfonieorchester, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Arctic Philharmonic, Trondheim Soloists and numerous other ensembles and international soloists.

His output ranges from solo and chamber music to concertos and large-scale orchestral works. Recent and forthcoming projects further demonstrate the scale of this development, including his Third Symphony, premiered by the Nürnberger Symphoniker under Lindberg’s own direction, as well as new concerto projects for internationally distinguished soloists.

His philosophy as a composer remains characteristically direct:

“I do not write in any style whatsoever. I simply listen to what my brain and my soul tell me, and what I hear I put down on paper.”

EUROPEAN GRAMOPHONE

In 2019 Lindberg co-founded the independent recording label European Gramophone together with Per Egland and Julianna Tarrodi-Lindberg, creating a platform built around artistic freedom and long-term collaboration between musicians, composers and orchestras.

European Gramophone has since grown into an extensive international catalogue of more than 500 albums, reaching an audience of over 100 million listeners and involving 36 orchestras from 17 countries and more than 50 artists.

Collaborating orchestras have included the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, ADDA Simfònica, Oviedo Filarmonía, Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla, Wermland Opera Orchestra, Gran Teatre del Liceu Orchestra Barcelona, Taipei Symphony Orchestra and Nürnberger Symphoniker, among many others.

For Lindberg, European Gramophone represents more than a record label: it is an extension of the same philosophy that has characterised his entire career – creating projects directly with musicians and orchestras, documenting repertoire that deserves to be heard, and allowing artistic ideas to develop without unnecessary boundaries.

THE TOTAL MUSICIAN

Five decades after his international solo debut, Lindberg remains unusually active across all three areas of his musicianship. Recent projects have seen him perform his own trombone concertos with major orchestras, conduct monumental symphonic repertoire, premiere his own orchestral compositions and develop new international recording projects, often bringing several of these roles together within a single artistic collaboration.

His continuing partnerships range from the Philharmonia Orchestra and Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra to the Nürnberger Symphoniker, Stuttgart Philharmonic, Norrköping Symphony Orchestra and orchestras across Europe, Asia and the Americas.

This combination – soloist, conductor and composer – has increasingly become the defining feature of the next chapter of Christian Lindberg’s career.

Christian Lindberg is a Conn-Selmer International Artist, a collaboration spanning more than 35 years. He performs exclusively on Conn trombones, with the Conn 88HCLSGX among the instruments developed through his long association with the company.