Peter Rainer

Violinist/Germany

Peter has been iPalpiti’s Concertmaster since 1994. In his native Germany, he is a concertmaster and a founder of the Kammerakademie Potsdam, and leads an active career as a chamber musician, soloist, and the teacher. Since 2007, Peter has been on the faculty of the “Universität der Künste” (University of the Arts) in Berlin and of the “Stern Institute” for young talented students.  In 2018 Peter has been appointed as the Head of the string department of “Musikgymnasium Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach at the Hanns Eisler Hochschule für Musik” in Berlin, a school for highly talented musical kids in Berlin.  

He was the founder and leader of the Persius Ensemble, focusing mainly on repertoire written for the classical nonet, and has released three CDs; a CD with nonets by Spohr, Clementi and Mozart was chosen by Berlin-Brandenburg Radio (RBB) as one of the best releases of 2007.  He has been a member of the Max Brod piano trio from 2012 -2017.  In 2016, the trio released a CD of compositions by Robert Kahn, a wonderful discovery of romantic music in style of Johannes Brahms. 
Music-loving children know Peter Rainer through the many interactive concerts he developed for them in the past 20 years, such as Till Eulenspiegel, Ferdinand the Bull, The Horse on the Violin, to mention a few.  For many seasons he has appeared at the Festival International de Musique de Chambre en Charente together with iPalpiti artist Jacob Shaw, and continues to collaborate with iPalpiti alumni on international musical projects. 

Peter Rainer studied violin in Würzburg with Max Speermann and in the U.S. with Professor Eduard Schmieder at the Meadows School of the Arts in Dallas, Texas where he received his Artist Certificate in 1994 and his Master of Violin Performance degree in 1995. Upon his return to Germany, he was appointed first concertmaster of the Brandenburgische Philharmonie in Potsdam from 1996 to 2000. 
Peter has worked as the assistant to Professor Schmieder at the Holland Music Sessions, at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas and at Temple University in Philadelphia. In 2005, he received a commendation from the City of Los Angeles for his leadership of iPalpiti and his contributions to culture.

During the “corona crisis” he rediscovered string quartets by Johannes MaRhias Sperger, an almost unknown composer today, who lived in the north of Germany at the same as Mozart and Haydn. The CD of these quartets will soon be released by the label JPC. This year Peter celebrated the 20th anniversary of his Kammerakademie Potsdam with a series of 8 concerts in 9 days.