Peter Richter de Rangenier

Peter Richter de Rangenier, also Peter Richter (25 March 1930 – 9 August 2021 ) was a German composer, conductor and university professor.

Life Born in Prague, Richter de Rangenier grew up in Lübeck, where he attended the Gymnasium and made his first attempts as a composer while still at school. He also founded the Lübecker Kammerorchester during this early period. He then studied composition, conducting, piano, horn and organ at the conservatories in Detmold, Hamburg and the Mozarteum in Salzburg. His teachers included Wilhelm Maler, Wolfgang Fortner and Philipp Jarnach in composition, Kurt Thomas, Eugen Papst and Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt in conducting, Hans Richter-Haaser in piano, Fritz Huth in horn and Michael Schneider in organ.

He worked as a Kapellmeister at the municipal theatre in Hagen in 1954 and at the Wuppertaler Bühnen in 1957. In the same year he founded and became chief conductor of the Junge Philharmonie Südwestfalen/Siegerlandorchester. From 1979 to 1981 he was active in Santiago as conductor of the Orquesta Filarmónica and the Teatro Municipal, while also appearing as guest conductor with other South American orchestras. The Chilean choral conductor Nolberto González Hevia is described by El Rancagüino as having perfected his formation with Juan Matteucci and Peter Richter de Rangenier at the University of Chile. In a 2025 interview, Bulgarian conductor Nayden Todorov named Peter Richter among the professors, alongside Karl Österreicher, Günther Theuring, Mendi Rodan, Iván Erőd and Uroš Lajovic, who were important for his formation during his studies abroad.

In 1981 Richter de Rangenier returned to Europe and began teaching composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.

Honours and prizes 1960: Kunstpreis des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen 1961: Förderpreis der Hansestadt Lübeck 1980: Ehrenmitglied der Philharmonie Santiago de Chile (Orquesta Filarmónica de Santiago) 1982: Theodor Körner Prize