Andreas Peer Kähler studied conducting and composition at the Berlin University of Arts (UdK Berlin) and as a DAAD scholarship holder in Sweden and Finland with Jorma Panula and Eric Ericsson. His encounter with Sergiu Celibidache whose courses on conducting and lectures on musical phenomenology he attended greatly influenced his artistic career. Ever since his student days, Andreas Peer Kähler has been actively engaged – on an independent basis – in a wide range of activities as a conductor, composer, concert presenter and music teacher.
In 1980 he founded the ‘’Deutsch-Skandinavische Jugend-Philharmonie and he remains its artistic director to this day. He has performed many of the most important pieces of the Nordic orchestral repertoire with the orchestra, including several world or German premieres. Andreas Peer Kähler is particularly noted for the repertoire he has devised and developed specifically for children, young people and their families. With the ‘’Kammerorchester Unter den Linden’’, a chamber orchestra founded in 1990, he created two series of family concerts: ‘’Tiere, Tango und Trompeten’’ (Animals, Tango and Trumpets, performed in the Chamber Music Hall of the Berliner Philharmonie) and ‘’Familienkonzerte in Dahlem’’ (family concerts in Berlin-Dahlem). Performances as a guest artist have taken him to Sweden, Finland, Norway, France, Poland, Lithuania, Switzerland, Iceland, Mexico and Australia. The music of Arvo Pärt – an esteemed collaborator and, indeed, friend for many years – is central to his work.
Andreas Peer Kähler also works for the Deutsche Oper Berlin as a freelance music teacher. He is primarily involved with the youth project ‘’Klassik is’ cool!’’ (Classical Music is Cool), and also narrates and/or acts in other youth programmes of his own creation. During these highly appreciated concerts he guides his young audiences through the various pieces by explaining both the music and the stories behind the pieces.
In 2007, his “Cool School Symphony” was awarded a prize for the best joint project between a school and an orchestra in the competition “Kinder zum Olymp!”.