Peter Breinholt

Peter Breinholt is a recording artist in the Salt Lake City, Utah music scene.

Breinholt spent the first ten years of his life in Devon, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, where his father Robert H. Breinholt taught at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the brother of Jeffrey Breinholt. He has three other siblings.

Career
While Breinholt was a student at the University of Utah, a homemade recording of his songs began circulating on campus. The positive feedback encouraged him, along with friends Mike Ensign and Rex Griffiths, to rent a studio and record a full-length album. That release, entitled "Songs About the Great Divide", became the best-selling, independently released album ever in the state, almost entirely by word-of-mouth. A decade after its release, Salt Lake Magazine described the album as "an underground classic on college campuses". Almost overnight, Breinholt's concerts began selling out 2,000-plus seat theaters and concert halls throughout the region, including Kingsbury Hall, Sundance Resort Amphitheater, Tuacahn, The Sandy Amphitheater and the Thanksgiving Point Waterfall Amphitheater.

As audiences grew, Breinholt began inviting additional musicians to perform at the live shows, including David Tolk, Ryan Shupe and then 15-year-old cellist Steven Sharp Nelson. During this period, Breinholt and band began road testing songs for their second release, "Heartland".

In 2000, Breinholt testified at a United States congressional hearing - along with Napster founder Shawn Fanning and tech CEOs - on the topic of digital file sharing. Breinholt spoke on the risks and potential opportunities peer-to-peer technology might present for artists. During the field hearing, Fanning used Breinholt's song "You Wear Flowers" to demonstrate how file sharing worked.

Breinholt performed during the 2002 Winter Olympics throughout Salt Lake City, including the arrival of the Olympic Torch to the Salt Lake City and County Building. He also performed during the Opening Ceremonies of the Moscow-Utah Games one year later.

On December 31, 2006, Breinholt was the featured guest artist for a worldwide New Year's Eve broadcast with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

In November 2016, Utah Governor Gary Herbert awarded Breinholt the Utah Governor's Mansion Artist Award for the Performing Arts.

During the first half of 2018, Breinholt and his family lived in Ecuador where he wrote songs for his eighth album "The Counting Of Nothing" released later that year.

In March 2019, Peter gave a TEDx talk in Provo, Utah, entitled "What Makes You Come Alive?".

Personal life
Peter is married to Rebecca Pulsipher Breinholt and they have four children. They live in the Avenues area of Salt Lake City, Utah.

Recordings

 * Songs about the Great Divide (1993)
 * Heartland (1996)
 * Deep Summer (1999)
 * Live September (2001)
 * Noel (2002)
 * All the Color Green (2006)
 * The Best of Peter Breinholt (May 2008)
 * The Counting of Nothing (2018)