Peter Freisinger, Conductor
Peter Freisinger received a Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance from Indiana University at Bloomington. He studied orchestral conducting at the Pierre Monteux School, and at the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati, earning a Masters and Doctorate. His conducting mentor at CCM and later in Seattle was Gerhard Samuel.
Early Years
Upon completion of his academic studies, Freisinger worked for six years in German opera houses (Nordhausen, Hagen, Hildesheim, Trier), conducting opera, operetta, musicals, orchestral music, ballet, and cabarets, and was active as a pianist and vocal coach. Peter then moved to New York, where he conducted with the New York City Opera Education Department, taught at Sarah Lawrence College and the Manhattan School of Music, improvised for dance classes at the Alvin Ailey School, and for silent films at Lincoln Center. In addition, he was organist and choir director at Sunnyside Reformed Church in Queens.
Assistant Professor and Conductor
During the 2002-03 academic year, Freisinger was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Central Arkansas, conducting the Conway Symphony and the UCA Chamber Orchestra. Upon returning to Boston, he was both assistant conductor and a violist with the Civic Symphony of Boston. In 2004, Peter began playing piano concertos with the Harvard Musical Association’s reading orchestra.
From 2005-2008, he was Music Director and Conductor of the Parkway Concert Orchestra, and also guest conducted the Rhode Island Philharmonic Youth Repertory Orchestra. In the summer of 2006, he conducted readings of Bach and Schoenberg at the Chamber Music Conference of the East in Vermont. In the summers of 2005 and 2007, Peter attended the National Arts Centre’s Conductors Programme under Jorma Panula and Kenneth Kiesler. As an orchestral violinist, he often returned to the Pierre Monteux School, where he was once a student of Charles Bruck. In 2007-08, Peter was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Berklee College of Music.
Freisinger Chamber Orchestra
In the summer of 2008, Peter founded the Freisinger Chamber Orchestra. Both summers of 2008 and 2009 included return trips to Interlochen as a violist, conducting readings and performing as a pianist. In the summers of 2009 (and again in 2018), he led a reading with the Brooklyn Symphony, and was invited to audition as a finalist for the assistant conductor position with the Orchestre National de Montpellier. In 2010, Peter began organizing readings with the FCO. These have included Mahler: Symphonies Nos. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9, Bruckner: Symphonies Nos. 4, 7, 8, and 9, Rachmaninov Symphony No. 2, Shostakovich Symphony No. 5, Stravinsky: Petrushka (1911 version) and Le sacre du printemps, Debussy: La mer and Trois Nocturnes, Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique and Scène d’amour, Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6, Prokofiev Symphony No. 5, Schoenberg: Five Pieces for Orchestra (original version), Beethoven: Symphony No. 9, Schumann: Symphonies Nos. 1, 2, 3 and Manfred Overture, Saint-Saens: Bacchanale, Dvorak: Symphony No. 9, Smetana: The Moldau, Strauss: Don Juan, Ravel: La Valse, Sibelius: Symphonies Nos. 1, 2 and 5, Elgar: Enigma Variations, Brahms: Haydn Variations, Rossini's Guillaume Tell Overture, and Schubert: Symphony No. 9.
Premieres, Lectures, Accompanist
Freisinger has premiered works by Michele Caniato, Luiz Castelões, Chao-Jan Chang, Donald Denniston, Lyudmila German, Anthony Green, Jakov Jakoulov, Jae Hyeok Jang, Matti Kovler, Vasiliy Medved, Kam Morrill, Gary Noland, Benjamin Park, Michael Romanul, Aaron Rosenberg, Koray Sazli, Dan Shore, Moshe Shulman, Igor Tkachenko, and performed works by contemporary composers Mohammed Fairouz, Allen Feinstein, and Steven Snowden.
In 2011, Peter conducted twenty-first century choral and instrumental pieces, including a world premiere, at the Hartt School of Music in Connecticut. He has lectured for the Wagner Society in Trier, Germany, and recorded a DVD of Irish silent films with filmmaker Peter Flynn of Emerson College (The O’Kalem Collection: 1910-1915). Peter returned to the New York Jewish Film Festival to accompany Benya Krik in 2016. He also plays for ballet at The Boston Conservatory, including their summer dance intensives, was a substitute class pianist with the New York City Ballet, and has played at the Boston Ballet School. Since 2013, Freisinger has accompanied auditions and masterclasses on piano at the Classical Singer Convention in Boston, and in that year debuted as a conductor in Kazan, Dimitrovgrad, and Ulyanovsk, Russia. In addition, he conducted a reading with the student orchestra at the Nizhniy Novgorod Glinka Conservatory. Peter was music director at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in Braintree, the First Baptist Church in Needham, and most recently at Nahant Village Church, all in Massachusetts. He was pianist at The University Club for four years, and was the main keyboardist for the “Dance with Parkinson’s” classes at Urbanity Dance for nine years, from its inception. In 2015, Freisinger was invited to conduct the Pacific Symphony Orchestra in Vladivostok, Russia, as part of their “Far Eastern Spring” festival. In June 2016, Peter returned to Ulyanovsk for an outdoor concert, performing works by Glinka, Ravel, Enesco, Falla, and Gershwin. In 2019 he conducted readings for AMC's "Mountains and Music" in New Hampshire. In 2021-22 Peter lived in Vienna, Austria, and was one of the pianists for the Wiener Staatsballett for six weeks. For the 2022-23 season, he worked at the Landestheater Detmold.
Educator
An enthusiastic educator, Freisinger has often rehearsed with the Thurnauer Symphony Orchestra, Youth Orchestras of Essex County Junior Symphony (both in New Jersey), New Jersey City University, and with the Phillips Exeter Academy Symphony and Symphonia (New Hampshire). He also gave a lecture on American music (in Russian), coached singers in foreign language diction, and coached a pianist in improvisation at the Nizhniy Novgorod’s Glinka Conservatory in December 2013. In March 2015, Freisinger led a reading at the esteemed Seoul Arts High School in Korea, then presented masterclasses at four schools in Vladivostok, Russia.
Peter enjoys speaking foreign languages, including German, Russian, and Romance languages, and has run five half marathons.
