CHRONOLGY

1934
Born 15 November, Lytham St. Annes, Lancashire

1948
Scholarship to The Leys School, Cambridge.

1953
ARCM and LRAM (piano performer’s) diplomas
Goes up to Cambridge as Organ Scholar of Queens’ College: becomes a pupil of Philip Radcliffe

1954
Postlude on Adeste Fideles

Prelude for organ (MS) and Three Preludes on Hymn-Tunes by Orlando Gibbons for organ (MS)

1955
FRCO diploma

1956
Awarded BA/MA degree in music. Shows compositions to Lennox Berkeley

1957 
Four W. H. Auden Songs (1956) performed for the poet at Cambridge and at the Wigmore Hall in an SPNM concert. Broadcasts as an organist for BBC Radio 3

1958
Awarded Rotary Foundation Fellowship to study at the Juilliard School, New York
Pupil of Bernard Wagenaar: courses in English and American literature at Columbia

1959
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 (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
Premiere of Sonata for violin and piano given by Dinos Constantinides and the composer at Carnegie Recital Hall

1962
Returns to England to lectureship at the College of St Mark and St John, Chelsea. Active in new music for schools

1963 
Monologue premiered by London String Players under Roger Norrington

1964 
Marries Bridget Jane Tomkinson

1965
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.

1966
Moves to Birmingham University as Staff Tutor in Music in the Extramural Department. Regular BBC performances increase

1969
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

1970
Moves back to London
Performing career as accompanist to Meriel Dickinson develops internationally. Transformations:Homage to Satie 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
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

1973
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

1974-84
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

1975
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

1977
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)

1980
Recitals with violinist Ralph Holmes

1982
Visits Stockholm for premiere of The Unicorns (John Heath Stubbs), for voice and brass, with Elisabeth Söderström and Solna Brass under Lars-Gunnar Bjorklund.

1984
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

1985
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

1986
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

1988
Merseyside Echoes premiered by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic under Barry Wordsworth. Auden Studies for oboe and piano premiered with Sarah Francis

1989
Premiere of Larkin’s Jazz (Philip Larkin) with Henry Herford (speaker/baritone) and the Nash Ensemble under Lionel Friend at Keele University
The Music of Lennox Berkeley published (1st ed. Thames)

1990
Tiananmen 1989 premiered by the London Concert Choir under Gregory Rose at St John’s, Smith Square

1991-97
Appointed to first chair at Goldsmiths College, University of London

1992
Awarded DMus (London University)

1994
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)

1997-2004
Head of Music, Institute of United States Studies, University of London

1999
Awarded: Hon DMus (Keele); Hon Fellowship, Trinity College of Music

2000
Three CDs of Dickinson’s music released on Albany Records
Marigold: the Music of Billy Mayerl published (OUP)

2001
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

2002
Copland Connotations: Studies and Interviews published (ed. Boydell)

2003
Invited to give lecture on Larkin’s Jazz to the Philip Larkin Society at Hull;
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
Bach in Blue premiered at Cheltenham Festival by Llyr Williams & BBC R3
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
CageTalk: Dialogues with and about John Cage published (ed. University of Rochester Press)

2008
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, and 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 etc. 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. 

2010
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. Bernarr Rainbow on Music: Memoirs and Selected Writings published (ed. Boydell Press). A Celebration Trio for violin, clarinet and piano, commissioned by the Verdehr Trio and performed several times in the US; also in Austria, Germany, France and in London, recorded in 2011 for Cristal.

2011

Revised version of String Quartet No. 1 premiered by the Kreutzer Quartet in London and York. Lennox Berkeley and his Friends:Selected Writings, Interviews and Letters in preparation.