Peter Allen
Concert pianist Peter Allen has continually delighted audiences with his power and poetry as a pianist, composer, teacher and conductor. He has recorded two solo piano compact discs for CBC, one featuring some of his own very popular Bagatelles, another an all-Haydn disc, and numerous duo CDs with flautist Patricia Creighton.
For many years he has been a regular performer with local concert presenters such as “Music on the Hill” Concert Series at UNB Fredericton, the New Brunswick Summer Music Festival, the Scotia Festival of Music in Halifax, the Antigonish Performing Arts Series, the St. Cecilia Concert Series and the Kincardine Music Festival in Ontario. Peter has also performed multiple times with the PEI Symphony and Symphony New Brunswick as well as performing over a dozen concerto appearances with Symphony Nova Scotia. Peter has performed as solo recitalist in most communities in the Maritimes, to rave reviews and standing ovations.
Peter is currently Associate Professor of Piano at Dalhousie University’s Fountain School of Performing Arts, a post he has held since 2005. He teaches piano, chamber music, orchestration, and also conducts the Dalhousie Symphony Orchestra.
As a chamber musician, he has performed with many illustrious musicians throughout Canada and around the world. He was the faculty pianist at the Banff Centre for the Performing Arts for five years prior to his return to Nova Scotia and performed there with an international roster of fabulous artists.
Peter is an Associate Professor of the Canadian Music Centre (CMC), a member of SOCAN and a member of The Living Composers Project.
He holds a BMUS from Mount Allison University, and a Masters of Music in Performance from Yale University.
Reviews:
“Pianist Peter Allen tackled the Liszt with amazing vigor and virile tone. The work is a kind of Everest for the pianist… magnificent spirit… his love and respect for Liszt were manifest in the thoughtful and also heartfelt way he shaped the sometimes ponderous Lisztian rhetoric.”
The Mail Star
“… for Mozart’s Piano Concerto in A, Peter Allen… gave a lilting,musical performance… displaying total control of the instrument with a fluency in the classical style… coaxing out of the piano nuance and passion…”
The Guardian
“Peter Allen’s wonderfully rich, lavishly pianistic and wholly absorbing Haligonian Rhapsody, a new work for two pianos which he and Torbert absolutely tore up the house with…rhythmically vigorous and musically resourceful…developed with ideal musical logic… contrasted agitation and grace…”
The Mail Star
“Allen’s vigorous rhythmic energy and the powerful bravura of his two-handed octave work at the blistering tempo with which Brahms ended histrio, anchored the ensemble with ferocious tenacity.”
The Chronicle Herald
“His Chopin ripples, his Debussy effervesces, his Mendelsohn confronts, and his own music surprises, challenges and delights.”
The Mail Star
“Allen’s clear-eyed playing (Chopin F Minor Concerto) lent a rare objectivity to this lovely music, without sacrificing any of its elegance. The phrases… were beautifully timed and full of natural grace.”
The Chronicle Herald
“… technically brilliant… successfully conveyed all of the sparkle and pianistic acrobatics required when performing Liszt’s concert works… dramatic interpretation…“
The Evening Telegram