Bio
As director of the highly acclaimed New Jersey Percussion Ensemble Peter Jarvis is active as a percussionist, conductor, educator, composer and administrator. Over the years he has played with and conducted many of the major new music groups in New York and New Jersey including the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Group for Contemporary Music, Talujon Percussion Quartet, The New York Art Ensemble and countless others including several distinguished orchestras and choruses. Jarvis has performed well over 100 premiers including works composed for him and his ensemble by Charles Wuorinen and Milton Babbitt among others.
As conductor he has appeared as a guest on the San Francisco Symphony's New and Unusual Music Series, with St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, The Group for Contemporary Music, as a founding member of both Ensemble21, the Cygnus Festival Orchestra and any number of others.
His extensive touring has brought him to Asia, Russia, Canada, Mexico and throughout the United States presenting concerts, solo recitals and master classes. Jarvis has appeared as a soloist for numerous new music festivals including the Europe Asia Festival in Kazan Russia, The Hong Kong Arts Festival in Hong Kong and Taiwan and as a guest of the ISCM League of Composers in New York. He has performed for Radio Denmark, PBS, Russian and Hong Kong television and WNYC radio in New York. His recordings can be heard on Nonesuch, CRI, Koch International, Composers Guild of New Jersey, October Music (for ECM), Capstone, NAXOS, and Gram recording labels among others. His compositions are published by Calabrese Brothers Music, LLC and he is a member of BMI.
Jarvis is on the faculty of William Paterson University and Connecticut College where he teaches percussion, directs the New Music Series and conducts chamber music.
Selected Press
"Peter Jarvis conducted the 40-minute piece (Percussion Symphony) without score, yet did full justice to it's rhythmic complexities; Mr. Jarvis and his forces richly deserved the standing ovation they received." - New York Times
"Though the maundering unisons (Rakowski's Sesso e Violenza) worked the conductor, Peter Jarvis, into a lather with their evident metrical complexity. - New York Times
"Mr. Jarvis played Sometimes with appropriate restraint and subtlety, just as he played Rainsticks with flamboyant energy." - New Music Connousseur - Joyellen Snellgrove, 2004
"It was a power (NJPE, conductor Peter Jarvis) that went beyond mere shock value." - New York Times
"While the new music scene abounds with percussionists, only a very few can match the awesome musicianship of Peter Jarvis." - New Music Connoisseur
"Kudos to the 'indefatigable' Peter Jarvis as one of the composers admiringly referred to him, who compiled, edited and engraved the music found in this meritorious vibraphone project." - Percussion Arts Society - Percussive Notes Magazine, June, 2005
"In Jarvis' hands the working out of dynamics in Homily was startling in its effectiveness, and Babbitt's ear for colors in something as supposedly limited as a snare drum was revealed." - Classical New Jersey
"I feel as if I am interviewing a world-class chef (Peter Jarvis) who wants me to believe haute cuisine is not much different from boiling water or making toast." - US 1
"Masked Dances, the composer asks for virtuosic playing of the highest order in tandem with electronics. Such a requirement can be fraught with problems, not to mention Murphy's Law. Cues have to be carefully worked out in advance. That all came off without the hint of a hitch and that Mr. Jarvis produced a spectacular solo performance of these widly rhytmic studies was, in a word, the highlight of the evening." - New Music Connoisseur
"The performances are top-notch -- it would be foolhardy to approach a Babbitt score with anything less than relaxed virtuosity." - Fanfare Magazine
"The presentation of the Rzewski composition (Coming Together) was as grand and exciting as a Mahler symphony. The audience was left breathless by the histrionics, the virtuosity, the interpretation, the rigorous baton of maestro Jarvis, and the dedication of the performers to bring about this epic twentieth-century composition." - New Music Connoisseur
"Particularly lovely was Peter Jarvis on Marimba, whose delicate, hollow and carefully placed notes epitomized the haunting power of the second movement." - Princeton Packet
"Just counting the piece is a major challenge; the rapid meter changes read like an algebra equation: 2/2, 13/16, 5/8, 5+4+3/16, 5/8, etc. Jarvis conducted it from memory. Not only did he keep everything together, but he went a step further, coaxing music from all those boxes and skins and pipes and blocks of wood. The first movement ended with a lazy long slowing-down and lingering ring that was a masterful example of the conductors craft. Sandwiched between the percussive movements of the piece are melodic sections based on a medieval song by Guillaume Dufay. The conductor must do much more than beat time here, he must sculpt melody, and Jarvis did it so a listener forgot to breathe. His musicians, bobbing, twitching and practically dancing at their instruments were obviously having the time of their lives." - The Bergen Record
"One cannot imagine better ambassadors for their music. Their ensemble playing was perfect in precision and physical presence." - The Christian Daily Newspaper (Copenhagen, Denmark)
"The New Jersey Percussion Ensemble is a national treasure. Nothing less can fairly describe this team." - The Star Ledger
"Depending among other things on the availability of performers like Peter Jarvis, who demonstrated his vaunted skills here completely." - New Music Connoisseur - Summer/Fall - 2006
"Moore, O'Connor, Stewart and Jarvis gave it a blithe, bravura performance." - Los Angeles Times
"The virtuoso Jarvis commands the sonic space, participating as a live vocal source while his timpani, provoked by the unknown world of electronic voices, establish order for the 'Occasional Demons.'" - New Music Connoisseur - Winter, 2007
"Jarvis' podium style embedded precision within flowing gestures, a philosophy of movement which clearly transferred itself to the players." - Classical New Jersey
"Peter Jarvis conducted the 40-minute piece without score, yet did full justice to it's rhythmic complexities; Mr. Jarvis and his forces richly deserved the standing ovation they received." - New York Times
"It was delightful music played perfectly." - Asbury Park Press
"The loudest approval went to the most radical work, John Cage's Third Construction, in a bristling, electric performance by the New Jersey Percussion Ensemble (Peter Jarvis, Michael Frasche, John Ferrari, Kenneth Piascik). One does not often hear so many shouted bravos from such a staid audience." - New York Times
"Surely no piece of cake, the work was impressively conducted by Peter Jarvis." - Star Ledger
"The New Jersey Percussion Ensemble, conducted by Peter Jarvis, is a marvelous group of 24 musicians who play with a welcome sensitivity to the repertoire." - San Francisco Examiner
"Peter Jarvis and John Ferrari gave virtuoso performances of Yttrehus' jagged but hypnotic music." - Trenton Times
"Peter Jarvis' reading (of Ionisation) was again restrained, emphasizing legato phrasing. In context of the other works on the program it was a touching statement to render this standard repertoire piece as if it were by a reincarnation of Mozart." - Classical New Jersey
"Conducted by memory by Peter Jarvis. . . it is a riotous celebration of rhythm - colorful and even poetic." - New Yotk Times
"Best of all was the New Jersey Percussion Ensemble, the country's pre-eminent such group of it's kind since it's inception in 1968. This muscular, energetic band of percussionists plays with a kind of unrestrained virtuosity, worthy of the best of today's chamber ensembles." - Newsday
"Peter Jarvis led the New Jersey Percussion Ensemble in a precise, tactile performance with an elastic pulse." - New York Times
"Certainly no one hears anything less than music of solid merit and performances of brilliant virtuosity. That surely describes the concert given by the New Jersey Percussion Ensemble." - New York Magazine
"Peter Jarvis and the players were superb, New Jersey can be proud." - Star Ledger
"A 1987 work for Solo Snare Drum (Homily), Peter Jarvis played the complex rhythms strongly." - Asbury Park Press
Compositions
Solo for Two Kick Drums (2007) - Double Bass Drum Solo
Metalic Music (2005) - Solo for Six Gongs
The Snares of Time (2005) - Solo Snare Drum
Extreme Measures (2005) - Solo Marimba
Four Plus Three (2003) - Solo Drum Set
Pitched Drums (1999) - Solo Timpani
Seven at Seven (1998) - Solo Vibraphone
