|
Peter Seivewright was born in Skipton, England, in 1954. He studied music at Oxford and spent three years as a postgraduate student at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, studying piano with Ryzsard Bakst. As a student at the RNCM he was a frequent soloist with RNCM Orchestras, receiving particular Press attention for his performance of Richard Rodney Bennett’s Piano Concerto.
Peter Seivewright is a multi-talented pianist with a wealth of talent, not only in the classical field, but also in jazz. He has performed all over the world, and in some quite unusual places! He has performed Piano Concertos with professional orchestras and given piano recitals in leading venues throughout the UK, Ireland, Norway, Austria, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Denmark (eight recital tours), Latvia, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, Australia (four recital tours), Afghanistan, China, India, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Trinidad and Tobago, the USA, and Russia. He has performed in the best-known concert venues in all these countries, including the Moscow International House of Music, the National Concert Hall in Hanoi, the Melba Hall in Melbourne, the Philharmonic Hall in Almaty, Kazakhstan, the Concert Hall of the Forbidden City Beijing, the Bösendorfer-Saal in Vienna, the Philharmonic Hall in Arkhangelsk, Russia and numerous others. He is one of the few British Pianists ever to be invited to perform in the International Masters of the Keyboard series in Bruges, Belgium, where his performances of J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations (BWV 988) and Sergei Rachmaninov’s 2nd Piano Sonata were rapturously received with a prolonged standing ovation.
Peter Seivewright has appeared as a Piano Concerto soloist with the Hallé Orchestra, Milton Keynes City Orchestra, Orchestra of Scottish Opera, Scottish Sinfonietta, Strathclyde Sinfonia, Camerata Scotland, Scottish Baroque Soloists, and Paragon Ensemble (all UK), Liepaja Symphony Orchestra (Latvia), State Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Kazakhstan), Beijing Symphony Orchestra (China), and Ho Chi Minh City Symphony Orchestra (Vietnam). He gave the first performance in the countries of the former Soviet Union of the Piano Concerto (1930) by the English Romantic composer John Ireland (1879-1962) with the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Republic of Kazakhstan, conducted by Tolepbergen Abdrashev, in the Philharmonic Hall, Almaty, Kazakhstan, in 2001.
His CD catalogue is extensive and includes Contemporary Scottish Piano Music (Merlin Classics 1991), The Complete Piano Music by Carl Nielsen (Naxos, 2 CDs 1995), Piano Music by the Danish Romantic composer Victor Bendix (Rondo Records, Copenhagen), a double-CD of the major piano works by the Danish Romantic composer Louis Glass (The Divine Art Record Company 2006), ‘American Piano Sonatas’ comprising music by Elliott Carter, Miklos Rozsa, and Edward MacDowell (The Divine Art Record Company 2009),and ‘J.S. Bach Piano Concertos’, with the Scottish Baroque Soloists (The Divine Art Record Company 2011). He is currently releasing a series of 10 CD's for The Divine Art Record Company comprising the complete Piano Sonatas (90 in total) by the last great composer of the Venetian Republic, Baldassare Galuppi (1706-1785), of which four CD's have so far been released. In 2014 The Divine Art Record Company will also release ‘Piano Music by Max Reger’, including Reger’s Variations and Fugue on a theme of J.S. Bach and Variations and Fugue on a theme of Telemann, and will also release a J.S. Bach's CD, including the Goldberg Variations (BWV 988). He will release a further 25 CD's with The Divine Art Record Company over the next seven years, including J.S. Bach's ’48’ Preludes and Fugues, Messiaen’s 20 regards sur l’enfant-Jesus, and at least four more CD's in his ‘American Piano Sonatas’ series.
As a jazz pianist Peter Seivewright led the Peter Seivewright Trio which was in residence at BBC Radio Manchester from 1979-1984. In 1980 he gave the British concert premiere of Friedrich Gulda's 2nd Piano Concerto, for Piano and Big Band, in Ronnie Scott’s Club, London, and more recently has performed extensively in the United States of America with the American jazz guitarist Jeff Ladenheim. He frequently performs recitals combining classical music and jazz.
From 2008 to 2011 Peter Seivewright was the inaugural Professor of Music (Full Professor) at the Academy for the Performing Arts at the University of Trinidad and Tobago, and in 2012 was Professor-in-Residence at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Peter Seivewright has just returned from Donetsk, where he performed Gershwin’s Piano Concerto and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the Donetsk State Academic Philharmonic Orchestra and their Principal Conductor, Vladimir Zavodilenko, also giving two recitals. While there, he received two honours: a Distinguished Artist Citation from the Donetsk State Academic Philharmonic Orchestra, and he was also made an Honorary Professor of the S S Prokofiev Donetsk State Academy of Music. His investiture as an Honorary Professor of the SS Prokofiev Donetsk State Academy of Music will take place during his next visit to Donetsk, and will include an inaugural recital.
Peter Seivewright has just accepted the post of Visiting Professor of Pianoforte at Ningbo University, in Ningbo, China, which will see him spending about two months a year in China, primarily as a performer, and also giving master-classes. However his permanent home will remain in Scotland, working exclusively as a classical concert pianist and jazz pianist.
His CD: "Peter Seivewright – American Piano Sonatas by Carter, Rozsa, McDowell", was awarded fourth place, and awarded the Special Judges’ Citation in the Ernst Bacon Memorial Award for the Performance of American Music 2017-2018.
Upcoming Performances: September 1, 2018: Piano Concerto by Aram Khachaturian (1903-1978) with the S S Prokofiev State Academic Symphony Orchestra and their Principal Conductor, Vladimir Zavodilenko, in the Philharmonic Hall, Donetsk, in the Donetsk People’s Republic; October 27, 2018: Sphere concert series, Renfield St Stephen’s Church, 260 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 4JP. He hase been appointed Pianist-in-Residence at the new Phuket School of Music, in Phuket, Thailand. This appointment commences on Tuesday, May 21, 2019. |
