Peter Willsher - Classical Composer/Conductor

Well lets see..................... I started music at the age of 7. After lots of false starts, I finally decided on the piano. When I was 11 my music teacher made me learn the clarinet instead! But I missed the piano so much, so I started agin when I was 17. I learned most of my music from Ken Ascot my church choir director. At conservatoire I majored in Clarinet, but also did a degree with Piano as the major. I was in an amazing band with Linda Bryan, Dave Lane and Tony Troughton-Smith when I was in grade 11 and 12. Unfortunately it folded when I went to Trinity College of Music in 1969. I studied with Bernard Keeffe, Franco Ferrara, Tony Lindsay (who was a student of Michelangeli) and Paul Harvey, of the London Saxophone Quartet. I even got accepted by the Great One himself, Bernstein, but unfortunately his untimely death nixed that! So after teaching in private schools in the UK for 15 years (students include Diana, Princess of Wales, Tilda Swinton (Witch in Narnia), and Hannah Waddingham (who I am sure I told more than once to stop listening to A. Lloyd Webber's music!), to mention no more than a few. After quitting teaching, I came to the New World, where I have been writing ever more music for professional musicians, amateurs and my children. Now I conduct a choir and an orchestra in Montreal. My most recent project was a large scale work for Choir, Orchestra and Soloists, which received its world premiere in Montreal in April and was written in the hopes of drawing some attention to the plight of deprived and suffering children.