Christian Bischof, born in 1982, grew up in Bamberg and received his initial musical training at the music school of the Regensburg Cathedral Choir. After finishing secondary school, he studied church music and organ at the Würzburg University of Music and the Music School in Piteå, Sweden. As a scholarship recipient of the Academic Endowment of the German Bishops’ Conference, he completed his studies in 2011 and and received the coveted Artist Diploma in Organ Performance (Meisterklassendiplom). His teachers included Christoph Bossert (organ), Hans-Ola Ericsson (organ), Zsolt Gárdonyi (organ and music theory), Jörg Straube (choral conducting), and Markus Bellheim (piano).
After several years of working as a church musician in Bamberg, Landshut, and at the Augustinian Church in Würzburg, Christian Bischof began serving at the Basilica of the Benedictine Abbey in Scheyern in 2012. He has been the organist and choir director of St. Margaret’s State Parish Church in Munich since 2013. As an artistic director, he has started several concert series’ and has played an important role in transforming and redesigning the sound of the symphonic organ in Würzburg’s Augustinian Church.
He has taught at the church music department of the Würzburg Diocese and has also lectured at the Würzburg University of Music. In his busy concert career, Christian Bischof performs organ music from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance while also focusing heavily on the German Romantic repertoire (above all Max Reger) and the works of Olivier Messiaen. As soloist and in collaboration with well-known instrumentalists, ensembles, and choirs, Bischof has given many concerts on important organs in Germany and abroad. In 2013, Bischof made his American debut at the regional convention of the American Guild of Organists in Kalamazoo, Michigan and was Artist in Residence at Western Michigan University. Bischof is also active as a certified organ consultant.
