Trumpeter Thomas Reiner takes after his inspiration, Maurice André, stylistically, with a brilliant upper register. Reiner is active across Europe as a concerto soloist, conductor, writer, and lecturer. He also heads the Arta Trompetenensemble, which contains eight trumpets, organ, and timpani. Reiner has made several recordings for the Naxos label, including Italian Baroque Trumpet Concertos (2024).
Reiner was born in Ludwigsburg, near Stuttgart, in 1969. He is unconnected to the German composer and musician (born in 1959) of the same name. When Reiner was 12, he attended a concert by the great trumpeter Maurice André and decided on the spot to take up the trumpet; his style resembles that of André. Reiner attended conservatories in Würzburg, Weimar, and Leipzig, with Helmut Erb and Uwe Komischke as two of his most influential teachers. With trumpeters Katharina Bertsch-Weber, Tamir Akta, Joachim Hilse, Karl Nemecek, Adam Rapa, Margit Csökmei, and Tomislav Spoljar, and organist Jürgen Benkö, Reiner formed the Arta Trompetenensemble; he made his recording debut with that group in 2002 with the album Fireworks. His solo debut came in 2007 on Naxos with the album Baroque Trumpet Concertos, recorded with the Southwest German Chamber Orchestra Pforzheim and conductor Sebastian Tewinkel.
Reiner has toured widely in Europe as a soloist and chamber music player. In the latter capacity, he performs in a duo with organist Frank Oidtmann. His recordings have been heard on such networks as Southwest German Radio, BBC Radio, and Radio New Zealand. Reiner has made several more recordings for Naxos, including German Baroque Trumpet Concertos (2022) and Italian Baroque Trumpet Concertos (2024); he focuses on Baroque repertory and sometimes played transcribed oboe concertos to enlarge that repertory. Reiner has lectured at several universities, including the Pädagogische Hochschule Schwäbisch Gemund, and he was a contributor to the periodical clarino.extra, Volume 6. ~ James Manheim
The durable Italian Baroque ensemble Interpreti Veneziani, in addition to recordings and a busy touring schedule, offers concerts that are important tourist attractions in its native Venice. The group's concerts during its 35th anniversary year in 2022 drew 60,000 viewers from many countries around the world, and it has founded its own musical instrument museum in Venice. Interpreti Veneziani has released more than 20 albums on a variety of labels from Italy and beyond. In 2024, the group backed trumpeter Thomas Reiner on the Naxos album Italian Baroque Trumpet Concertos.
Interpreti Veneziani, whose name means "Venetian Interpreters," was founded in Venice in 1987. The group quickly gained a reputation for exuberant performances with a certain Italianità , and it began to attract large groups of locals and tourists alike for its concerts, given nightly for much of the year, at Venice's San Vidal Church. Those concerts were praised by the popular travel writer Rick Steves, among others, and by the 2020s, were seen by some 60,000 people annually. Interpreti Veneziani began to record relatively early in its career, issuing an album of Tartini violin concertos with a trio of Italian soloists on the Rivoalto label. The group made several more albums for Rivoalto and for the Agora Musica label in the late '90s.
Interpreti Veneziani has focused heavily on the music of the Italian High Baroque and on that of Vivaldi above all, but their repertory also includes works from the Classical era to the modern period. In addition to performing in Venice, the group rotates annually among the U.S., Japan, Canada, and Latin America, performing in top halls, and it has also toured in Japan and India. Interpreti Venziani has appeared at such venues as the Royal Palace in Stockholm, Sweden, and the Kirov Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, the latter as part of events surrounding the reversion of that city to its original name (from Leningrad). Interpreti Veneziani's recordings in the 2010s and 2020s have mostly been made for non-Italian labels, including Newton Classics and Naxos. For the latter, the group recorded two albums of trumpet concertos with trumpeter Thomas Reiner: German Baroque Trumpet Concertos in 2022 and Italian Baroque Trumpet Concertos in 2024. ~ James Manheim
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