BRITISH
COMPOSER, WRITER AND PIANIST
PETER
DICKINSON is the British composer, writer and pianist.
His music has been written for some of the leading international performers and is well represented on CD. There are four CDs on Albany: Piano Concerto/Outcry/Organ Concerto; Songcycles; Rags, Blues & Parodies; and Pianos, Voices and Brass. And two CDs came out on Naxos in 2009: Complete Solo Organ Works and Mass of the Apocalypse/Larkin’s Jazz/Five Forgeries etc.
His 75th birthday in 2009 was marked by performances including the Blue Rose Variations for organ in the BBC Proms, played by David Titterington; Tiananmen 1989 for double choir and tubular bells, sung by Commotio under Matthew Berry in Oxford; the American Trio played by the Zalas Trio at the Wigmore Hall; Jennifer Bate played several organ pieces at the Fourth Annual Festival of New Organ Music and she has recorded his complete solo organ works.
As a performer he had a long career with his sister, the mezzo Meriel Dickinson. Apart from their advocacy of American and British repertoire, they pioneered programmes based on composers such as Erik Satie, Lord Berners and Charles Ives in festivals here and abroad and in broadcasts and recordings
Dickinson’s books include The Music of Lennox Berkeley; Marigold: the Music of Billy Mayerl; Copland Connotations: Studies and Interviews; CageTalk: Dialogues with and about John Cage; Lord Berners: Composer, Writer, Painter and Samuel Barber Remembered: a Centenary Tribute.
Dickinson is an Emeritus Professor of the University of Keele, where he set up the Music Department and its Centre for American Music in 1974, and of the University of London, where he was Professor at Goldsmiths College from 1991-97. He was Head of Music at the Institute of United States Studies, University of London, until 2004.