Peter Dickinson
Biography Peter Dickinson
Peter Dickinson
is a British composer, writer and pianist of the senior generation. 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. Three CDs on Naxos: Complete Solo Organ Works and Mass of the Apocalypse/Larkin’s Jazz/Five Forgeries etc. These were followed by Piano Music performed by the composer; reissues of American Song and British Song, both on Heritage with Meriel Dickinson, the composer's sister; a recital with Ralph Holmes; Blue Clavichord; and a historic recording of his musical drama with Thomas Blackburn, The Judas Tree, released in 2014 - all on Heritage. Three Concertos and Merseyside Echoes followed and then seven Orchestral Works in 2016, launched in London along with the book of over fifty years of writings, Peter Dickinson: Words and Music, with an Introduction by Stephen Banfield and a memoir by Meriel Dickinson. Translations, early chamber music, was released on Prima Facie in 2018: a further CD of Chamber and Instrumental Music, again mostly first recordings, appeared on Toccata in 2020.
Dickinson's 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 - see her article about Dickinson's organ music in The Organ (Spring 2018).
