Rainer Lorenz studied music and computer science in Karlsruhe. Since 2018, he has been head of the ComputerStudio of the University of Music Karlsruhe. He also teaches applied audio media technology and media production at the Institute for Music Informatics and Musicology (IMWI) at the University of Music Karlsruhe.
During training as a pianist and drummer, he was already concerned the interplay of music and technology. Following encounters with Luigi Nono and Hans Peter Haller in 1984 and the sound engineer Friedrich Mauermann, the subject areas of applied music technology and computer science became a central focus of his work and further education.
Rainer Lorenz has been a concert pianist; teacher of piano and music theory; jazz and dance musician; sound engineer; and music producer. He was awarded a fellowship by the Akademie Schloss Solitude foundation in Stuttgart, and was the founding director of the Medias teaching program at Music and Art School Bruchsal, Baden-Württemberg. As composer and sound director, he was a member of the Karlsruhe New Composers Society (NKG) and ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, visiting lecturer at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, and the Karlsruhe Virtual University Federation research project for the state of Baden-Württemberg.
After graduation, he founded the Studio for Applied Audio and Media Technology. As part of this work, he collaborated with many well-known composers, companies, institutions, and festivals for contemporary music and the arts in Europe. As specialist in music and media technology, he was appointed to the University of Music Karlsruhe, where he coestablished the ComputerStudio with Thomas A. Troge as an electronic music and new media studio in association with ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe and other local cultural institutions in the context of advancing ideas on artistry in the state of Baden-Württemberg in the early 1990s at the University of Music Karlsruhe.