Peter studied Modern Languages at Cambridge, then piano at RAM. He began his career as a member of the ENO music staff, before moving to the Royal Opera. He has a repertoire of over 120 operas, of which he has conducted over 70, for UK companies including Opera North, WNO, ETO and Opera Holland Park and in Australia, Singapore, Hungary and the Czech Republic. During 8 years in Germany he worked as Head of Music and Kapellmeister at Staatstheater Nürnberg, spent a season at the Hamburgische Staatsoper, and assisted for three seasons at the Bayreuther Festspiele. He co-founded and for nearly 20 years was co-Artistic Director of the Internationales Kammermusikfestival Nürnberg.
An experienced and passionate Wagnerian, he has worked on numerous full Ring Cycles, at Bayreuth, ROH, Nuremberg, Strasbourg, Longborough Festival and with the LPO. Recently he concluded a 4-year project conducting Jonathan Dove’s innovative reduction of the Ring Cycle for the Grimeborn Festival at the Hackney Empire, conducted Tristan und Isolde and Die Walküre for the London Opera Company, and he has spent the last two summers in Bayreuth assisting on the current Ring Cycle.
He is a Professor at the RCM and a regular coach on the Jette Parker Artists Programme at the Royal Opera, where he also works regularly on the music staff. He is the recently appointed Principal Conductor of the Lambeth Orchestra, one of London’s oldest and finest amateur orchestras, and Music Director of the London Opera Company.
Current and future plans include Siegfried with the London Opera Company, Ariadne auf Naxos for MusikfürMusik Kollektiv Berlin, Tosca and various concerts with the Lambeth Orchestra, and returns to Bayreuth, Longborough and LPO to assist on the Ring.