Chronology
1934 1948 1953 Goes up to Cambridge
as Organ Scholar of Queens’ College: becomes a pupil of Philip Radcliffe 1954 *Prelude for organ (MS) *Three Preludes on Hymn-Tunes by Orlando Gibbons for
organ (MS) 1955 1956 1957 1958 Pupil of Bernard
Wagenaar: courses in English and American literature at Columbia 1959 (1960) regularly
performed in Mexico City and elsewhere String Quartet No 1
and A Dylan Thomas Song Cycle performed in Composers Forum series, New York Four Gerard Manley
Hopkins Poems for choir and organ commissioned by St. Matthews, Northampton.
Lecturer at Fairleigh Dickinson University, New Jersey 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1969 1970 Performing career as
accompanist to Meriel Dickinson develops internationally. Transformations,
commissioned by the Feeney Trust, premiered at the Cheltenham Festival by the
CBSO under Meredith Davies. Winter Afternoons (Emily Dickinson) premiered by the
King’s Singers at the Queen Elizabeth Hall 1971 1973 1974-84 1975 1977 1980 1982 1984 1985 1986 1988 1989 The Music of Lennox
Berkeley published (1st ed. Thames) 1990 1991-97 1992 1994 1997-2004 1999 2000 Marigold: the Music of
Billy Mayerl published (OUP) 2001 2002 2003 also at Senate House,
London University, jointly for the Institute of English Studies and United
States Studies Lecture to the British
Music Society on Lennox Berkeley for his centenary The Music of Lennox
Berkeley (new, much enlarged edition, Boydell) 2005 Featured composer at
Dartington Summer School with works based on W. H. Auden. Invited to Michigan
State University for lectures, master-classes and performances including
Larkin’s Jazz, London Rags and American Trio. Invited by the Samuel
Barber Foundation to give lecture ‘In Quest of Samuel Barber’ at 1st
Presbyterian Church, West Chester: played Canzonetta as solo piano piece Fourth CD on Albany
Records: Pianos, Voices & Brass 2006 2008 2010
Born 15 November, Lytham St. Annes, Lancashire
Scholarship to The Leys School, Cambridge.
ARCM and LRAM (piano performer’s) diplomas
FRCO diploma
Awarded BA/MA degree in music. Shows compositions to Lennox Berkeley
Four W. H. Auden Songs (1956) performed for the poet. Broadcasts as an organist
for BBC Radio 3
Awarded Rotary Foundation Fellowship to study at the Juilliard School, New York
Freelance work in New York, including pianist for New York City Ballet with
Balanchine. Reviewing for Musical Courier and the Musical Times. Variations for
piano (1957) made into ballet Vitalitas by Gloria Contreras
Premiere of Sonata for violin and piano given by Dinos Constantinides and the
composer at Carnegie Recital Hall
Returns to England to lectureship at the College of St Mark and St John,
Chelsea. Active in new music for schools
Monologue premiered by London String Players under Roger Norrington
Marries Bridget Jane Tomkinson
Musical drama, The Judas Tree (Thomas Blackburn), produced at the College and
for a week in the fringe of the Edinburgh Festival. Later at Liverpool and
Southwark cathedrals and for three nights in Holy Week in Washington DC (1967).
Composes An e.e.cummings Song Cycle, premiered at Cheltenham by Meriel Dickinson
and John McCabe (1966). First article on Peter Dickinson for The Musical Times –
by Roger Norrington.
Moves to Birmingham University as Staff Tutor in Music in the Extramural
Department. Regular BBC performances increase
Outcry, a cycle of nature poems commissioned by Coventry Philharmonic Society,
is premiered with Meriel Dickinson (mezzo) and the Coventry Philharmonic Choir
under the composer
Moves back to London
Premiere of Translations by David Munrow, Christopher Hogwood and Oliver Brooks.
Organ Concerto premiered by Simon Preston and the CBSO under Louis Fremaux at
the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester Cathedral
Recorder Music, with tape playback, premiered at the Wigmore Hall by David
Munrow. Surrealist Landscape (Lord Berners), with tape playback, premiered at
the Purcell Room by David Ross and Ingrid Surgenor
Moves to Keele, as first Professor of Music, founds one of the most important
centres for American music outside the USA. Visits USA for Charles Ives
centenary: devises BBC 2 TV film on Ives. Lust (in series of Seven Deadly Sins)
premiered by The King’s Singers at Cheltenham
String Quartet No. 2 (with tape playback) premiered by Alberni Quartet. Late
Afternoon in November (Dickinson) a BBC commission for BBC Northern Singers
premiered under Stephen Wilkinson. Starts to make recordings with Meriel
Dickinson
Schubert in Blue, jazz parodies of Schubert’s Shakespeare settings, premiered by
Meriel Dickinson and Christine Croshaw at the Wigmore Hall (in collection Songs
in Blue)
Recitals with violinist Ralph Holmes
Visits Stockholm for premiere of The Unicorns (John Heath Stubbs), for voice and
brass, with Elisabeth Söderström and Solna Brass under Lars-Gunnar Bjorklund.
Moves back to London. Premieres: Mass of the Apocalypse at St. James’,
Piccadilly, for the 300th anniversary of the church; Piano Concerto
with Howard Shelley and the BBC PO under Edward Downes at Cheltenham Festival.
Recitals with oboist Sarah Francis
Premieres: Stevie’s Tunes (Stevie Smith) by Meriel Dickinson and the composer,
Purcell Room, London; American Trio [originally Hymns, Rags & Blues] by the
Verdehr Trio, Michigan State University
American and Mexican lecture-recital tour: premiere in New York of Blue Rose
Variations (organ) by Jennifer Bate; invited by British Council for 25th
season of ballet Vitalitas in Mexico City. Piano Concerto at the Proms. Premiere
of Violin Concerto, BBC commission, by Ernst Kovacic and BBC PO under Bryden
Thomson, Leeds Town Hall. EMI records Piano Concerto and Organ Concerto (now on
Albany). Melvyn Bragg’s South Bank Show makes 50-minute TV documentary about
Dickinson and his work, screened on 13 March 1987
Merseyside Echoes premiered by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic under Barry
Wordsworth. Auden Studies for oboe and piano premiered with Sarah Francis
Premiere of Larkin’s Jazz (Philip Larkin) with Henry Herford (speaker/baritone)
and the Nash Ensemble under Lionel Friend at Keele University
Tiananmen 1989 premiered by the London Concert Choir under Gregory Rose at St
John’s, Smith Square
Appointed to first chair at Goldsmiths College, University of London
Awarded DMus (London University)
Peter Dickinson at 60: recital in the Purcell Room with Meriel Dickinson, Sarah
Francis, Jack Brymer, Eric Parkin, including premieres of Summoned by Mother
(Betjeman) (1990) with Meriel Dickinson and Lucy Wakeford (harp), and Swansongs
(1992) with Penelope Lynex (cello) and Alexander Wells (piano)
Head of Music, Institute of United States Studies, University of London
Awarded: Hon DMus (Keele); Hon Fellowship, Trinity College of Music
Three CDs of Dickinson’s music released on Albany Records
Invited to give 2nd T. S. Eliot Lecture at Washington University, St Louis –
‘From St Louis to Europe: the International Influence of Scott Joplin’s Ragtime
Rhythms’. Also given at University of Illinois, Champagne-Urbana; Louisiana
State University, Baton Rouge; and the Institute of United States Studies,
University of London
Copland Connotations: Studies and Interviews published (ed. Boydell)
Invited to give lecture on Larkin’s Jazz to the Philip Larkin Society at Hull;
Bach in Blue premiered at Cheltenham Festival by Llyr Williams & BBC R3
CageTalk: Dialogues with and about John Cage published (ed. University of
Rochester Press)
Gave Eccles Centre Lecture at BAAS Conference, Edinburgh: John Cage was
all the Rage – repeated at the British Library and published by the
Eccles Centre. Lord Berners: Composer, Writer, Painter published (Boydell).
Lectures or lecture-recitals on Berners at the Cheltenham Festival,
Dartington Summer School, Cheltenham Literary Festival, the British Library.
2009
75th birthday year marked by the release of two CDs on Naxos (Complete Solo
Organ Works performed by Jennifer Bate; Mass of the Apocalypse, Larkin’s
Jazz et al performed by the Nash Ensemble et al released November 09).
Performances include Tiananmen 1989 by Oxford chamber choir Commotio;
Blue Rose Variations performed by David Titterington at the BBC Proms
at the Royal Albert Hall, London; organ works featured in Fourth Annual
Festival of New Organ Music, London, played by Jennifer Bate; and
American Trio at the Wigmore Hall, London, in November.
Samuel Barber Remembered: A Centenary Tribute published by
Rochester University Press; Lord Berners: Composer, Writer, Painter
reissued in paperback; editon of Complete Piano Duets by Lord Berners
published by Chester Music.
