Education Brenner received music degrees in 1981 and 1984 at the Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst in
Graz, Austria, and earned a master's degree in history in 1993 and Ph.D. in
musicology in 1995 at the
University of Vienna, (
Vienna, Austria).
Career From 1987 to 2017 he was the professor and researcher at the Institut für Ethnomusikologie, Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst, Graz, Austria. In addition, in 1998/99 and 2010 he was guest lecturer at the Leopold-Franzens-Universität, Innsbruck (Austria) and 1997-99 guest lecturer at the
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) in
Mexico City. In 2000/01 he has been engaged as a
UNESCO consultant for a multilateral
marimba project with eleven participating Latin America countries within the program ''Patrimoine Oral e Immatériel de l'Humanité''. There he managed as field consultant a multilateral marimba-project in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Cuba, Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil. From 2002 to 2009 he was also professor at the musicological institute of the
Saarland University in
Saarbrücken,
Germany and since 2009 guest professor at the
Universidad de Ciencias y Artes de Chiapas in
Tuxtla Gutiérrez (Mexico). In 2004 he earned his postdoctoral lecture qualification (Venia legendi/Habilitation) in ethnomusicology and popular music research at the Saarland University (Germany) with a professorial dissertation (Habilitationsschrift) on Marimbas in Latin America.
Latin American music ethnomusicologist Brenner was one of only few ethnomusicologists from the German-speaking world dedicated to Latin American music, as well as to traditional and popular music. ==Death==