Christian Amonson
Owner, Founder, Lead Engineer
Able to see sound, recording engineer Christian Amonson has initiated a radical shift in the way that music is recorded and mixed. By echolocating sounds, he sees what the recording shows: the location of the instruments, the size of the space, the location of the walls, and the location of the mics. By integrating all the sonic cues that our ears want and expect to hear, Christian delivers a new level of realism/idealism and musicality. His first orchestral recording was described as “The best quality yet.” (Fairfax Symphony Orchestra)
He studied music composition before joining the Classical Music Library Online, where he reviewed and cataloged thousands of recordings from orchestras around world. The position transformed his ears and gave him a vision for what is possible, both in life and in music. Christian then won his first full-season recording contract at age 20, selected after Virginia's only fully-professional vocal ensemble auditioned the most experienced classical engineers in the mid-Atlantic. He received his first major label credit at 21 for Bruce Hornsby’s album, Elevate. He has since recorded for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with John Williams, and in 2015, Christian was selected to serve as Recording Engineer for "The President's Own" United States Marine Band in Washington, DC.
His work has been featured by NPR, the BBC, Time Magazine, the Kennedy Center, et al. International clients include the Venice Baroque Orchestra (Italy), Stradivari Quartett (Germany), Jesus College Cambridge (UK), Filharmonia Opolska (Poland), and others. Christian owns Arts Laureate, and he actively auditions, recruits, and mentors engineers, and he also serves as a resource to artists and engineers in the classical community. In 2019, he presented “The Fundamentals of Orchestral Recording” at the League of American Orchestra’s national conference.
