Christian Colberg is currently the Principal Viola of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Prior to joining the CSO, he was the assistant principal viola of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Colberg is also Lecturer of Viola at the University of Michigan, an artist-faculty member at the Aspen Music Festival and School, a faculty member at the National Youth Orchestra USA and a Valade Fellow at the Interlochen Center for the Arts.
Colberg began his musical studies at age four in his native Puerto Rico. A recipient of numerous awards, including the Alpha Delta Kappa Foundation Fine Arts grant, Colberg was honored by the House of Representatives of Puerto Rico in 1985, and again by the Senate in 1994, for his achievements in the classical music field. He is a graduate of the Peabody Institute of Music, where his main teachers included Alexander Schneider, Saul Ovcharov, Charles Libov and Shirley Givens. Colberg has also been a member of the violin faculty of the Peabody Institute of Music and the viola faculty of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music
As an active chamber musician, Colberg has collaborated with artists such as Marvin Hamlisch, Gary Karr, Milton Katims, Augustin Hadelich, Samuel Sanders, Joseph Silverstein, Jaime Laredo and Sharon Robinson, and with organizations including the Sitka Summer Festival; Arizona Musicfest Festival; the Muir, Cypress and Ariel string quartets; and the Silk Road Festival in China.
In October 2018, Colberg premiered his own Viola Concerto with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. He has performed this work with numerous orchestras, including the Puerto Rico Conservatory Orchestra, Carolina Philharmonic and Musica de Cámara in New York City. The second movement of his concerto was used as the competition piece for the 2014 Primrose International Viola Competition and the third movement has been used in the Sphinx Competition since 2023. In June of 2018, Colberg’s The Rant — For Two Violas, was premiered at the International Viola Congress in Los Angeles. In 2022, his compositions for string quartet and percussion were released on an album titled Talking to Myself, on which he also played all the parts. His newest album for string quintets and percussion, titled Baylamoose, was released in 2024 and, again, he performs all the parts on the album.