A native of St. Gallen (Switzerland), Peter Eigenmann was born in December of 1952. He began playing guitar at the age of 14. Predominantly self taught, he played in local Pop an Rock groups and gradually got increasingly more fascinated with Jazz. He performed with many different swiss musicians and a variety of different ensembles, toured Norway in 1979 and then had the opportunity to work with trumpet player Ken Cervenka from Boston, USA. In 1980 he continued his studies in the US with the likes of Mick Goodrick, Mark Soskin, Bela Lakatos. In addition, while there he had the opportunity to play in New York with musicians like Don Friedman (piano) and Sam Jones (bass). Also actively involved with Jazz Education, he has taught guitar and performance at the St. Gallen Jazz-School in Switzerland since 1982. In 1985 he formed the Peter Eigenmann Bigband and began to concentrate on this arranging talents as well. The Big Band has recorded twoCD's (1989 and 1996). For 9 years he was involved with a quintet featuring american trumpetist Benny Bailey, with Peter Frei or Jesper Lundgaard (bass), Peter Schmidlin (drums) and Carlo Schöb (sax). This work was documented on two CD's: "Benny Bailey Quintet - Peruvian nights" (1989) and "Benny Bailey Quintet - No Refill" (1994). In addition he has worked with the following musicians: Klaus Weiss, Tony Lakatos, Woody Shaw, Reggie Johnson, Thomas Ovesen, Alan Praskin, Andy Scherrer, Billy Brooks, Isla Eckinger, Fritz Pauer and others. Since 1992 he's been leading his own quintet with US trumpet player Tom Kirkpatrick, and played, together with swiss bass player Hämi Hämmerli, in a trio led by the american trombonist Ed Neumeister. The trio recorded their first CD in 1996 for TBC-Records, entitled ED NEUMEISTER feat. Peter Eigenmann and Hämi Hämmerli: "The Mohican And the Great Spirit". A new recording entitled "Something Special" with his own trio was released in spring 2000, featuring Isla Eckinger on bass and Peter Schmidlin on drums. A new recording with his nonet, feat. Ken Cervenka (tp/flh), plays the music of Trudi Strebi and Carlo Schöb will be released in June 2013.