Christian Rieger

Following several years of autodidactic training and lessons from Maria Bergman in Baden-Baden, Christian Rieger went to study piano at the Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe. There he became interested in early music, and with a stipend from the German Academic Exchange Service he went to Basel, Switzerland to study organ with Jean-Claude Zehnder and harpsichord with Andreas Steier at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. With his first solo appearances and prizes quickly following, he was a guest soloist and continuo player with Musica Antiqua Köln from 1994-2000, performing together with the ensemble in many of the world’s finest concert venues. Since 2000 he has been heavily in demand both within Germany and abroad as a soloist on the harpsichord, organ, and fortepiano. Moreover, he has been regularly engaged as a musical director, recently conducting his own interpretation of Jacques Offenbach’s Belle Hélène at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf. For the internationally acclaimed film Le roi danse he was responsible for the arrangement of the film music.

In 2004, after teaching in Detmold, Salzburg and at the Hochschule Hanns Eisler in Berlin, Christian Rieger was appointed as a professor for historical keyboard instruments and as ensemble director at the Folkwang-Hochschule in Essen. In 2008 he began the ambitious project of performing the complete keyboard music of J. S. Bach, with concerts at the Philharmonie in Essen as well as at Radialsystem V in Berlin. This project is to be continued throughout the next several years.

In October 2009 his newly produced recording of J. S. Bach’s Art of the Fugue was released on the Cavi Music label (ALIVE).

> Repertoire

“My basic repertoire on the harpsichord encompasses its entire range, although as a German I am mostly in demand for the performance of Bach’s music, something with which I have no problems. My range of music goes up to Mozart on the fortepiano and Schumann on the organ. I no longer play the modern piano.” - Interview with Christian Rieger in Concerto magazine Issue 227 August/September 2009 >>

REPERTOIRE >>

> Music

	Johann Sebastian Bach: Kunst der Fuge / Art of Fugue >> audio sample
	Bach oder nicht Bach: Frühe Cembalowerke
	Johann Sebastian Bach: A Due Per Flauto E Cembalo Dorothee Oberlinger, Christian Rieger
	Johann Georg Pisendel: Violin Sonatas Anton Steck, Christian Rieger
	Nicola Porpora: Violinsonaten Anton Steck, Christian Rieger