Dr. Daniel Rieppel

Pianist, conductor and music historian  Daniel Rieppel, a Minnesota native of Austro-Hungarian and Norwegian descent, holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in Piano Performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music and Indiana University, and earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Minnesota under Lydia Artymiw; Dr. Rieppel also lived and studied in Munich, Germany as a DAAD scholar with the eminent German pianist Gerhard Oppitz. 

Daniel Rieppel made his solo piano recital debut at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, a performance which was subsequently broadcast in its entirety by Minnesota Public Radio. He has worked as a chamber musician with members of the Minnesota Orchestra and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.  In the Midwest he has appeared as soloist with numerous ensembles, including the South Dakota Symphony, the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra (Minneapolis), the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra (Minneapolis), and The Lake Superior Chamber Orchestra (Duluth). 

He has performed widely in the U.S., Latin America and Europe, including the Palais Corbelli in Vienna and Schloss Ahrenberg in Salzburg. He has performed for the U.S. Ambassador to Panama on several occasions, and is a frequent collaborator of the “Alfredo de Saint Malo” International Music Festival. 

In February of 2019, the  piano/percussion quartet  “Sticks and Hammers” made its official debut at the New World Center in Miami Beach, Florida.  Recent performance highlights include the American (Minneapolis) and Scandinavian (Reykjavik, Iceland) premieres of a new song cycle, “Playing Haydn for the Angel of Death” on poetry of Bill Holm and music by Martha Helen Schmidt.  Pioneer Public TV (PBS) produced a documentary on the creation of the song cycle in June of 2023 and won an Emmy in October of that year.  A recording of this song cycle was released in May 2025 at Milkweed Publishers and is available worldwide.   

Dr. Rieppel appeared in conversation with Steve Staruch on Minnesota Public Radio this past summer discussing his life as a performer, teacher and enthusiastic Schubert researcher, with tracks from his new solo album also featured on that broadcast. 

Dr. Rieppel has served as Professor of Music at Southwest Minnesota State University since 1998. He served on the artist faculty for the Young Artist World Piano Festival in Minneapolis for 15 consecutive years and he currently is artist faculty member of the St. Paul Conservatory of Music.  He appears on a recent album of the Lieder of Julius Burger with his former student and protégé Ryan Hugh Ross on the Spaetlese Musik label, along with Nicola Rose and Sian Cameron.  His new solo CD released in November, 2023 on Willowhayne Records of the UK and has received multiple airings on Minnesota Public Radio.