Collection 001 - Charles Reiner Collection

Charles Reiner was born in Budapest, Hungary on April 7, 1924, and died in Montreal on August 19, 2006. He moved to Canada in 1951 as part of the Jewish diaspora caused by persecution in Hungary and became a Canadian citizen. Before he left Europe, he was interned at the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria from 1944 to 1945. Afterwards, he returned to Hungary where he attended the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, studying with Arpad Hanak, Arnold Szekely, and Bela Böszörmenyi-Nagy. He won the International Competition for Music Performers in Geneva in 1947 and was awarded the first prize for virtuosity by the Geneva Conservatory the following year. After he came to Canada, Reiner established himself as a successful concert artist and educator. He was particularly adept at collaboration, performing with Hymen Bress, Maureen Forrester, Antonio Janigro, Arthur LeBlanc, Igor Oistrakh, Ruggiero Ricci, Henryk Szeryng, and Richard Verreau, among many others. Reiner frequently performed on CBC Radio and CBC Television during his career, and was a founding member of both the Canadian Piano Quartet and Musica Camerata Montreal. He was a professor at McGill University for 40 years, teaching on the music faculty of the Schulich School of Music.