Cristian Spătaru was born in 1993 in Chișinău, Republic of Moldova. He started studying music at the age of 8, when he took his first piano and music theory lessons and sang in a choir. Cristian has won first prize three times in a row in the National Composition Competition of Moldova.

He first studied Composition with Michael Jarrell, then Orchestral Conducting with Mark Stringer and Choral Conducting with Alois Glassner at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. In June 2021 he took his orchestral conducting exam with distinction, conducting a piece by George Enescu in the Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein.

His achievements include the 2nd Prize at the Premio Guido Cantelli 2022 and the prize for “Best Romanian Conductor” won twice at the 10th and 11th editions of the International Conducting Competition “Jeunesses Musicales” in 2019 and 2021. He has also participated in Masterclasses with conductors such as Andres Orozco-Estrada – 2021, Marin Alsop – 2021, Cristian Măcelaru – 2020 and 2021, Sian Edwards – 2017, Christian Ehwald and Sigmund Thorp – 2021, Nicolás Pasquet – 2021. As a highlight of 2021, he was selected for the Riccardo Muti Italian Opera Academy in Milan, where he had the opportunity to take over two concerts of the Maestro’s opera Nabucco in Rimini and Ravenna.

On 1st of April, 2022 he made his debut as opera conductor with Peter Ilych Chaykovsky’s Eugen Onegin at the Romanian National Opera in Cluj-Napoca, followed by Nabucco in September 2022. In November 2022 he made his debut with Le nozze di Figaro in Bucharest with Valentina Nafornita as the Countess. In March 2023 he debuted as ballet conductor in the premiere of Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet with Valentina Turcu as director.