Kammersänger Professor Peter Schreier
Peter Schreier, born in Meißen, looks back on an extensive musical career which he started as a member of the Dresdner Kreuzchor where, still a student, he sang the solo parts of several Bach-Oratorios.
Awarded with numerous prizes, for instance the Nationalpreis 1. Klasse, the Leonie-Sonnigs-Music-Prize, the Wiener Flötenuhr for his achievements concerning Mozart's work, and Ernst-von-Siemens-Prize which Leonard Bernstein and Claudio Abbado were also awarded with, and the International Mendelssohn-Prize Leipzig, the renowned interpretor of Mozart and Bach is not only a versed performer of the "Lied" – the genre Schreier's musical passion puts the main focus on – but also a highly estimated singer of Oratorios and Cantatas of the Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods. An extensive discography accounts for Schreier being a highly sensitive interpretor of the "Lied", having a sure sense of style of any epoch until Modernism. For his recording of the 3 great Schubert-Cycles together with András Schiff in 1990/91 he received the British Gramophon-Avery-Prize.
Peter Schreier is furthermore a member of the Kungliga Konsthögskolan Stockholm (1989) and of the academies in Munich and Berlin. He is an honorary member of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde Wien (1986) and was appointed "Kammersänger" by the Free State of Bavaria, the Austrian Republic and the GDR.
Since 1991 he has been teaching as an honorary professor for voice. Between 1963 and 1969 Schreier performed with the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin and the Wiener Staatsoper. Furthermore he sang at the Music Festivals in Bayreuth and Salzburg – where he continued to give guest performances for over 25 years – followed by his debut at the New Yorker Metropolitan Opera and several performances at the Teatro alla Scala and the Teatro Colon Buenos Aires.
His debut as a singer in Beethoven's Fidelio, however, was right after graduation from the Dresdner Musikhochschule, where he had studied voice with Herbert Winkler and Johannes Kemter and conducting with Ernst Hintze and Martin Flämig until 1959. In 1961 he became an ensemble member of the Staatsoper Dresden.
Since 1979 Schreier has also achieved prominence as a conductor, leading, amongst others, the performances of Bach's Passions and the Christmas Oratorio in Europe and the US.
He has worked with many renowned orchestras, such as the Dresdner Staatskapelle, the Berliner Philharmonisches Orchester, the Wiener Symphoniker, the Mozarteum-Orchester, the Gürzenich-Orchester, the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg and the Los Angeles-Philharmonic-Orchestra.
In 2005 Schreier ended his career as a singer and, since then, has taught master classes and performed as a conductor.
