In over 40 years of continuous conducting, Cristian Mandel has practiced his profession abroad and especially in Romania. As Main Conductor and General Director of the “George Enescu” Philharmonic (1991 – 2009), he raised it to a very high standard, leaving behind an institution representative for Romania. Over 30 tours took place in Europe and Asia. A relevant discography has been achieved on CD and DVD, including Enescu and Brahms complete works. There were a lot of great concert-event series of national and international visibility and constant participation in all Enescu Festival editions.
Abroad, Cristian Mandeal has conducted hundreds of concers as a guest in tens of orchestras, on 4 continents, in 35 countries and 31 capitals. He attended several prestigious international festivals in the company of the most reputed contemporary soloists.
He was Artistic Director of Northern Israelian Orchestra – Haifa (1999 – 2002) and Basque National Orchestra – San Sebastian (2001 – 2008), Permanent Conductor at Haydn Orchestra from Bolzano e Trento (2000 – 2003), Permanent Guest Conductor of Hallé Manchester Orchestra (2003 – 2008) – the first one to achieve this title in over 150 years of existence of this orchestra, of the Belgrade Philharmonic (2006-2007 season) and of the Copenhagen Philharmonic (2006-present).
Cristian Mandel has conducted over 60 absolute first auditions, in particular Romanian composers, but also foreigner ones, some of them being dedicated to him. He is a tireless promoter of George Enescu, by programming his music all over the world. Among others he conducted Oedipus, the opera, for the first time in Britain (Edinburgh Festival 2002) and Italy (Teatro Lirico di Cagliari 2005). Since 2008 he has been President of the George Enescu Society in London. One of the most interested facts in Cristian Mandeal’s late career is the collaboration with the Romanian Youth Orchestra which he has been educating and conducting starting with 2008.