Born 1998 in Munich, German-Afghan pianist and composer Philipp Rhein started playing the piano at the age of six. Since then he has won numerous awards in national and international competitions. 

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In 2014 he was awarded a 1st prize by the Tamino Foundation Munich for his composition "Allegro e grazioso". He won the International Karel Kunc Competition Bad Dürkheim twice in 2016 and 2018 and also received a special prize from VR Bank. In 2017 he was awarded a 3rd prize as the highest placed European participant from the International Piano Festival "Clavis Bavaria". In 2018 Philipp Rhein won a special prize for his compositional work by the Gesellschaft zur Verwertung von Leistungsschutzrechten (GVL). At the 19th International Piano Competition Klavierpodium in Munich 2019 he was awarded four special prizes as well.

Having received a scholarship from the Altenburger Musikakademie in Vienna, Rhein made his orchestral debut in 2017 with the Vienna International Orchestra in Halbturn performing Haydn's Piano Concerto in D major. During a concert tour in California with Soprano Serafina Starke in 2018 he was invited to hold a masterclass at the Oakland School for the Arts. In February 2019 he completed the work for his first Concerto for Piano and Orchestra Op. 10 in E minor.

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As a soloist Rhein has performed with orchestras such as the Vienna International Orchestra, Pazardzhik Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra Wernigerode among others. He received important inputs for his work from Robert McDonald, Hung-Kuan Chen, Michelle Cann and Ignat Solzhenitsyn at the Juilliard School of Music in New York and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and attended masterclasses with Boris Berman, James Giles, Jun Kanno, Benjamin Loh, Gereon Kleiner, Robert Lehrbaumer, Congyu Wang, Vasco Dantas among many others. Philipp Rhein has performed extensively in many European countries and the USA. Festival appearances include the Piano Concerto Festival in Bulgaria, Hidalgo Liedfestival, Tenerife International Music Festival, SIPO Óbidos as well as the Clavis Bavaria Festival.

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Rhein is particularly committed to rarely performed works. His repertoire ranges from Schütz, Bernier, Alkan, Webern to Zimmermann, Krenek and Taneyev. The renowned Pianist Club Munich premiered some of his own compositions. 

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Besides holding a Bachelor's degree in business administration and quantitative economics, Rhein is currently studying composition for film, theatre and media with Till Löffler and Niki Reiser as well as piano performance with Prof. Hans-Jürg Strub at the Zurich University of the Arts. At the moment he is collaborating with the Zurich Opera for #Takeoff. 

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