Donald E. Osborne,  Director California Artists Management 564 Market Street, Suite 420, San Francisco, CA  94104-5412 415 362-2787 / fax: 415 362-2838 / Skype: calartistsdon  / Email

Susan Endrizzi Morris,  Director California Artists Management P.O. Box  2479, Mendocino, CA  95460-2479 707-937-4787 / cell: 415-302-1083 / Skype: sueendrizzi / Email

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Peter Schreier Conductor Updated December 2010– please discard any previous version

One of the world’s most renowned tenors, Peter Schreier has also distinguished himself as one of the foremost conductors of the music of Mozart, Bach and their contemporaries.

Born in Meissen, the son of a church cantor and music teacher, Peter Schreier was a member of the Dresden Kreuzchor where he was entrusted with many solo parts, including Solo Alto in Bach’s passions and oratorios, instilling a lifelong involvement with these works. Upon finishing high school, he attended the State Academy of Music in Dresden, studying singing with Herbert Winkler and Johannes Kemter, conducting with Ernst Hintze and choral conducting with Martin Flämig.

In 1959 he made his operatic debut as the First Prisoner in Beethoven’s Fidelio.  A few years later he joined the Dresden State Opera, where in 1962 he had his first big success in the role of Belmonte in Mozart’s ‘Abduction from the Seraglio.’ There followed a series of important debuts: the German State Opera as a guest soloist, the Vienna State Opera, the Bayreuth Festival in 1969 and the Salzburg Festival in 1970, where he performed the role of the young seaman in Tristan und Isolde. He continued to appear in Salzburg every year for the next 25 years. He made major international debuts with the role of Tamino at the Metropolitan Opera (New York), La Scala (Milan), and the Teatro Colon (Buenos Aires).

Peter Schreier has been widely recognized for his outstanding achievements; Austria, the former West Germany, and the State of Bavaria recognized his musical contributions, bestowing on him the honorary title of “Kammersänger.” He has been Honorary Professor of Singing since 1981, an Honorary Member of the Musical Society of Vienna since 1986, a member of the Royal Swedish Arts Academy since 1989, and he is a member of the Musical Academies of Munich and Berlin. Other distinctions include the Bundesverdienstkreuz, German National Award of the former GDR, 1st Class (1972, 1986) and the Leonie Sonnigs Music Award, Copenhagen (1988). In 1988 he was awarded the Ernst von Siemens Prize in Munich, joining the ranks of other distinguished recipients including Leonard Bernstein, Wolfgang Sawallisch and Claudio Abbado. In 1994 he received both the Georg Philipp Telemann Prize of the city of Magdeburg and the Wartburg Prize. For his recordings of the operas of Mozart, he received the prestigious “Wiener Flötenuhr,” and for his service to the music of J.S. Bach, the Royal Academy of Music Bach Prize (2009).

From the start of his long career, Peter Schreier earned a reputation as a world-class Mozartean tenor. He considers Mozart’s operatic roles a core part of his stage work, though he has also received acclaim in other important roles, such as Loge in Das Rheingold and the title role in Pfitzner’s Palestrina. He has a comprehensive repertoire in classical/romantic cantatas and oratorios and a great passion for performing art song; he has given Lieder recitals in all of the most prestigious concert halls of the world, including Carnegie Hall.

Drawing on his history with the Dresden Kreuzchor and his German protestant cantoral heritage, Peter Schreier considers the works of Bach to be the centerpiece of his artistic efforts.

For decades, Peter Schreier has been renowned as a highly intelligent and sensitive interpreter of song, as demonstrated through an extensive discography, which ranges through all musical styles up to the present. In 1990 and 1991 he committed the three great song cycles of Schubert to compact disc with the pianist Andras Schiff. These recordings were recognized with the English Gramophone Avery Prize.

For more than 25 years, Peter Schreier maintained a dual career as singer and conductor. He performed Bach‘s Passions and Christmas Oratorio, both conducting and singing the role of ‘the evangelist’ with many of the world’s leading orchestras in Cleveland, Los Angeles, Vienna, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, and Cologne. Performances with the Dresdner Staatskapelle, Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Mozarteum Orchestra, Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra have made him a widely sought-after conductor.

Peter Schreier retired from singing in 2005, but he continues to be in demand for vocal masterclasses and to conduct the world’s leading orchestras. More than fifty of his many recordings remain in current issue including a DVD documentary of his final year singing. He is the subject of five German-language books: a biography by Jürgen Helfricht, “Peter Schreier – Melodien eines Lebens (Melodies of a Life)”; Gottfried Schmiedel’s “Peter Schreier: Eine Bildbiographie (A Photo-biography);” a memoir, “Peter Schreier: Aus meiner Sicht (From My Point of View);” “Peter Schreier. Interviews, Tatsachen, Meinungen (Interviews, Facts, Opinions)” by Wolf-Eberhard von Lewinski; and the portrait “Für Sie porträtiert: Peter Schreier,” published by the Deutscher Verlag für Musik.