Peter Breiner is a Canadian-Slovak composer, conductor, pianist and arranger. He is known internationally for a multiplicity of recordings, broadcasts, telecasts and concert appearances. He began to play the piano at the age of four. When he was nine he started his formal training at the Košice Conservatory, where he studied piano, percussion, composition and conducting. He received traditional European musical training and studied composition at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava (former Czechoslovakia) with Alexander Moyzes, one of the most significant figures in modern Slovak music.
Peter Breiner has recently conducted the world première of his own oratorio composition The Story (based on the Biblical texts) for solo singers, two choirs and a large orchestra. Other compositions include two symphonies, orchestral, chamber and choral music. His complete works for piano trio were released on his profile CD in summer 2004. He is perhaps best known, however, for his clever arrangements, including award-winning Baroque versions of the Beatles and a similar adaptation of Elvis Presley and of popular Christmas music. Breiner's distinctive arrangements of all national anthems were used during the Olympic Games in Athens 2004.
In addition to the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Peter Breiner has conducted, often doubling as a pianist, the Vienna Mozart Orchestra, the Hungarian State Radio Orchestra, the Nicolaus Esterhazy Orchestra Budapest, the Polish Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra, the Ukrainian State Symphony Orchestra, the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, Capella Istropolitana, the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre National de Lille, France, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, among many others.
