Hailed as “sensational” and for playing with “total commitment and conviction” (Seen & Heard International 2024), cellist Rainer Crosett is quickly building an international career as an artist of uncommon sensitivity and creativity. From his Wigmore Hall recital debut as the first American cellist to win the Pierre Fournier Award, to his concerto debut during the 2022-23 season with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London, he regularly appears as a soloist and chamber musician on many of the most renowned stages throughout Europe and North America. Rainer’s passion for the way music relates to other fields also continues to yield boundary-breaking interdisciplinary projects, including a new chamber music society in Berlin, Tonhain Kollektiv.
Rainer’s recent concert highlights have included recitals at Bridgewater Hall (Manchester, UK), Oxford May Music, the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts (Chicago), and the Roman River Festival (UK). As a chamber musician, he has recently performed at the Zürich Chamber Music Society, Yellow Barn, Ravinia, Grachtenfestival Amsterdam, Rheingau Musik Festival, Romsey Chamber Music Festival, HearAndNow Festival Amsterdam, Miesbach Kammermusikfestival, Prussia Cove Open Chamber Music, Music@Menlo, and La Jolla SummerFest. He has also collaborated in performance with artists such as Robert Levin, the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, the Parker Quartet, Anthony Marwood, Donald and Vivian Weilerstein, and Kim Kashkashian.
As co-founder of Tonhain Kollektiv, he has worked with a team of fellow musicians to artistically direct a successful series for a brand-new concert hall, Tonhain, in Berlin. The group has produced dozens of concerts, including a centerpiece 9-concert opening season - “Machine Counterpoint” - exploring the relationship between music and machines, featuring music ranging from the standard repertoire to many works of our time by composers such as Kurtág, Unsuk Chin, Thomas Adès, and Ben Nobuto. Tonhain Kollektiv will also debut at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg in 2025.
In addition to winning the Pierre Fournier Award in 2018, Rainer was the recipient of the Silver Medal and the Artistic Encouragement Award at the 2017 Ima Hogg Competition in Houston, TX, resulting in a concerto debut with the Houston Symphony. In 2015, Rainer made his concerto debut at Boston’s Jordan Hall with the New England Conservatory Philharmonia under Hugh Wolff, as winner of the NEC Concerto Competition.
He began his studies in the Harvard-New England Conservatory Joint Program, through which he received his M.M. from New England Conservatory and his A.B. magna cum laude in Philosophy from Harvard, where he was one of only 24 students to be elected to Phi Beta Kappa as a junior and was named a John Harvard Scholar. Also during his time at Harvard, he was the recipient of the Lucy Allen Paton Prize, the Thomas T. Hoopes Prize, and an Artist Development Fellowship.
Rainer went on to receive an Artist Diploma at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music and pursued further graduate studies at the Universität der Künste Berlin. His study in Germany was generously supported by a Frank Huntington Beebe Fund Grant. His principal teachers and mentors included Jens Peter Maintz, Ralph Kirshbaum, Paul Katz, and Mark Churchill. He has also taken lessons and masterclasses from notable cellists such as David Geringas, Frans Helmerson, Steven Isserlis, Yo-Yo Ma, Laurence Lesser, Bernard Greenhouse, and Gary Hoffman.
Rainer is a passionate advocate of classical music as a force for social change and he is particularly involved in activism for human rights in North Korea. He has worked for Citizens' Alliance for North Korean Human Rights in Seoul and has given several fundraising concerts in both the U.S. and South Korea, helping to raise significant funds for various North Korean human rights-oriented projects.
