Leopold Brauneiss (b. 1961) is an Austrian composer, musicologist, and educator based in Vienna. He studied musicology at the University of Vienna and music education, piano, and composition with Heinz Kratochwill at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, earning his doctorate in music in 1988.
From 1990 to 2010, Brauneiss taught music theory at the J.M. Hauer Conservatory in Wiener Neustadt. Since 2004 he has served as Lecturer in Harmony and Counterpoint at the University of Vienna, and since 2006 he has held a lectureship in harmony, counterpoint, and orchestration at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy” in Leipzig.
Brauneiss’s principal research focuses on the Tintinnabuli style of Arvo Pärt, whom he has known personally for more than twenty years. The style’s characteristic reduction, structural clarity, and austere compositional methods have had a formative influence on his own musical language, which he often enriches with chromatic and even dodecaphonic elements within a tonal framework.
His works have been performed by internationally renowned artists such as Gidon Kremer, by ensembles including Kremerata Baltica, and by orchestras such as the Tonkünstlerorchester Niederösterreich, and have been presented at major festivals including Wien Modern and the Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival.
