Konstantin Reymaier

Konstantin Reymaier is the Cathedral Organist, playing the famed organ at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna. He is also an ordained Catholic priest. Reymaier was born on May 8, 1967, in Wagna in southern Austria's Styria state. He attended the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, studying organ with Rudolf Scholz and then Alfred Mitterhofer. At the same time, he completed a theology degree at the University of Vienna. He earned a concert diploma in organ in 1992 with unanimous distinction from the faculty. Reymaier is also a composer, and by that time, he had already notched a prize in an international composition competition at the Festival of European Church Music in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany, in 1991. In 1997, Reymaier became music director at Mansfield College at England's Oxford University, serving there until 2001. He also taught at Cambridge University during this period. He toured widely as an organist, appearing around Europe, in the U.S., and in the Middle East. In 1999, he made his recording debut on the album Great European Organs No. 55: The ARP Schnitger Organ of St. Jacobi, Hamburg, released on the Priory Records label. In 2001, Reymaier moved back to Austria, taking a position as professor of organ and improvisation at the University of Graz. He remained there until 2005 when he enrolled in a Vienna seminary. In 2009, Reymaier was ordained as a priest. The following year, he became director of music for the Archdiocese of Vienna and Cathedral Curate at St. Stephen's. In 2016, Reymaier and Ernst Wally were named Cathedral Organists at St. Stephen's, remaining in that position as of the early 2020s. Reymaier is in demand for master classes and for seminars in organ construction, and he oversaw the renovation of the cathedral's main organ, one of the largest in the world, which concluded in 2020 after a period of two and a half decades when the organ was unplayable. Reymaier made two albums for the Deutsche Grammophon label that demonstrated the organ's capabilities: The New Organ at St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna (2020), and César Franck: Trois Pièces et Trois Corals (2022).
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