Peter Cowdrey, Piano

Peter Cowdrey won music scholarships to Winchester College and Trinity College, Cambridge. He studied composition with Oliver Knussen. He was resident in Polynesia for three years. He then founded the world music group Orbestra, which toured in Europe from Shetland to Bulgaria and in South America, and recorded with Hannibal/Rykodisc. In 1995 he conducted the premiere of his A Garden Amidst Flames in Aya Irene, one of Istanbul’s great basilicas. His works have been premiered at Schleswig Holstein Festival, the Royal Albert Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room. Bremania was commissioned by the BBC Concert Orchestra and premiered in Bucharest.

As a pianist, Peter has performed Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition live while Russian artist Eugenie Vronskaya reimagined the pictures live.

Many of Peter’s compositions are inspired by birdsong. In 2009, he founded the ensemble The Conference of Birds. He founded a charitable initiative, Planet Birdsong, which promotes education and global communication through birdsong. Click here to view a short film about him on the BBC News website.

Peter’s one-act opera The Lovely Ladies was performed at Christies in 2010, and at Buxton Opera Festival in 2011. The Mad Duchess was premiered at Boughton House in Northamptonshire with further productions in Norfolk and in London. Click here to watch a short dramatic work for children’s choir, The Death of Hook.

In 2023, Peter became the first person to complete Mlada, a composite opera started in 1872 by Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, Musorgsky and Cesar Cui. 2024 premieres included a short children’s opera performed in in Moffat, The Horse and the Greyhound, and a community oratorio, St Birgitta’s Vision, at Broadwell Church in Oxfordshire.

Peter’s compositions can be heard on his Soundcloud page.​