WASHINGTON CLASSICAL REVIEW, September 23, 2018
The Fairfax Symphony Orchestra opened its season with a smashing concert performance of Puccini’s “Saturday night at the George Mason Center for the Arts…. Placed onstage behind the singers, the playing of the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra was terrific. Zimmerman deftly adjusted dynamics and timing, pacing the performance with a singer’s sensibilities. Dynamics were a more delicate challenge and Zimmerman met it beautifully, never overwhelming the voices, allowing diction to emerge clearly while still providing both bumptious excitement and dramatic tension.
THE WASHINGTON POST, September 10, 2017
There’s more than one established orchestra in the D.C. region and the Fairfax Symphony … is continuing its trajectory of quiet quality with a season that includes the launch of its 60th anniversary year, and some outstanding soloists, under conductor Christopher Zimmerman.
Christopher Zimmerman, Conductor and Music Director:
Fairfax Symphony Orchestra, Fairfax, VA
Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra, Fargo, ND
From his professional debut, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, of which The Daily Telegraph of London observed “Contact with the orchestra seemed immediate, the result a reading in which the playing responded keenly to gestures which themselves were expressive both of the symphony’s fiery vigour and of its finer nuances. Christopher Zimmerman revealed a sharp interpretative profile and control of orchestral timbre…. a most auspicious London debut.” to guest conducting in Cleveland with the Ohio Chamber Orchestra, where Donald Rosenberg of the Cleveland Plain Dealer described his performance as “some of the finest conducting at Severance (Hall) in recent years,” Zimmerman elicits enthusiasm and praise. His leadership of the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra continues to garner praise as Zimmerman enters his seventh season at its helm: “(In Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony) Zimmerman pushed the strings, especially in the quicksilver second movement, and they delivered beautifully. And he paid close attention not only to sarcasm and grotesquerie but also to soft passages — this orchestra can handle quietude, but few conductors ask it to.”
Listen to: Mambo from West Side Story