Hailing from Indianapolis, Indiana, Peter John has been lauded by fellow musicians, critics, and teachers alike as having a “firm command” at the piano and a “deep sensitivity” for the music he plays. “A rare talent,” Peter performs with nothing less than “incredible conviction.” He received his Doctorate in Piano and Composition from the University of Minnesota studying with Alexander Braginsky and his Masters Degree at the Cleveland Institute of Music studying with Antonio Pompa-Baldi and continued private studies with Sergei Babayan.
In December of 2011, Peter was the only American finalist in the 2011 Stanislaw Moniuskwo Competition and performed Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto with the National Orchestra of Belarus in the Great Philharmonic Hall in Minsk, Belarus. In 2013 he won the Kenwood Masters Concerto and Aria Competition and performed with the Kenwood Symphony Orchestra in February of 2013. In the 2009-2010 season, Peter was one of three Americans selected to compete in the 2009 Louisiana International Piano Competition, and a finalist in the Astral Artists 2010 National Competition and the Ibiza International Piano Competition. In September 2010, Peter performed on the island of Ibiza, Spain as well as in Barcelona, Spain and Berlin, Germany. Peter has received numerous awards including first place in the Indiana State IMTA competition, first prize in the Ball State Concerto competition, Matinee Musicale as well as the Everett Harbough Memorial scholarship at Ball State. As the 2005 Undergraduate Concerto Competition winner at Ball State University, Peter performed with the Ball State Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Bridget-Michaele Reichl. His prize in the competition included a two solo recitals in Osaka, Japan as part of a week-long artist residency, including a world premiere of his piano fantasy, “Sea of Glass”. This piece was later performed in the US and Canada as well. He has given solo and chamber recitals in Germany, Spain, Belarus, Italy and Japan as well as in the continental US, performing extensively in the Midwest.
As a composer and electronic musician Peter has collaborated with producers and artists such as Jerry Wonda (Grammy Winning Producer of The Fugees), Son Lux, Dan Richards from One Direction, Lissie, Ashley DuBose and many more from songwriting to production. As a producer, his collaboration with Lance Conrad as YNKE has led to multiple releases on Spotify and iTunes from an EP of Future RnB with Ashley DuBose to forward thinking Rap and Techno Remixes. His music is represented by In The Groove and Black Label recordings.
His live electronics projects are equally diverse; In 2018 he collaborated with James Sewell Ballet creating a piece for Ballet Dancers and an infrared controller that allowed the dancers to control the music live in his original work, “The Spaces Between Us”. In 2017 he collaborated with composer Jocelyn Hagen to create a work for Choir and electronics, sampling the sounds of a full choir to create custom synthesizers which were then performed live in their work, “Hummingbird” (published by Graphite Publishing).
His Solo Cello Piece “from the zodiac” was premiered in The Kennedy Center by Cicely Parnas and was praised by The Washington Post as being “…full of assertive and expressive music that elicited real enthusiasm from the audience.”
This piece was performed again in concerts across the United States including at Merkin Hall in Lincoln Center, NYC and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, MA. His interest in collaborating across genre and between disciplines began with a series of improvised concerts with two oil painters creating live works. These live art installations were featured in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland in 2011, and the Harrison Centre in Indianapolis, featuring more than 3 hours of completely improvised music.
As a collaborator, Peter frequently performs with cellist Cicely Parnas in both traditional classical concerts and in electronic crossover performances as Duo Futur. Recent performances have been in the Target Atrium in Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, MN and the ICDA summer symposium as well as in collaborative concerts in North Carolina and Tennessee.
He is also a dedicated teacher, and his students have been invited to play in masterclasses for Sergei Babayan, Alexander Ghinden and Antonio Pompa-Baldi. His own past teachers include Ray Kilburn and William Eltzroth, and he has been in masterclasses with Olga Kern, Stanislav Pochekin, Daniel Shapiro and Jane Solose.
Devoted to giving opportunities to classical musicians, Peter started the TAB artist concert series, bringing internationally recognized artists to the Indianapolis area. The concert series was praised as an “impressive achievement” by The Indianapolis Star.