Peter Evans
Peter Evans is a composer, trumpet player, bandleader and educator based in New York City. For 20 years Evans has been pushing the boundaries of creative music in formats as divergent as solo trumpet improvisation, symphony orchestras, jazz ensembles, noise/electronic music, and through-composed works. He's been the recipient of awards and commissions worldwide including the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in 2022. He's released 20 albums of original music including the critically acclaimed Ghosts, Lifeblood and Being & Becoming. A prolific composer and performer, Evans tours regularly with his groups Being & Becoming, SYMPHONY, Forever 21, as a soloist and as a collaborator with some of the leading lights of modern music.
BIO
BIO
Peter Evans is a composer, trumpet player, improvisor and bandleader based in New York City since 2003. Evans is part of a broad, hybridized scene of musical experimentation, and his work cuts across a wide range of modern musical practices and traditions. Evans is committed to the simultaneously self-determining and collaborative nature of musical improvisation as a compositional tool, and works with an ever-expanding group of musicians and composers in the creation of new music.
He leads and composes for the band Being & Becoming (with Joel Ross, Nick Jozwiak and Michael Ode) as well as SYMPHONY, (with Alice Teyssier, Nick Jozwiak and Levy Lorenzo). He leads a trio, Forever 21 with virtuosi Andy Berman (guitar) and Michael Ode (drums). As well as collaborative projects such as his duo with Elias Stemeseder, and Pulverize the Sound, Evans continues to work in a variety of new formations, exploring through-composed music, group improvisation, arranging, Jazz standards and electronic music.
In addition to touring and presenting his groups internationally since 2007, Evans has been exploring solo trumpet music since 2002 and is widely recognized as a leading voice in the field, having released 7 albums of solo music since 2006, including the critically claimed “More is More” and “Lifeblood”. He has performed solo in the USA, Europe, Asia, and South America.
As a composer, he has been commissioned by the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Wet Ink, Yarn/Wire, the Donaueschingen Musiktage Festival, Monheim Trienalle, the Jerome Foundation's Emerging Artist Program, and the Doris Duke Foundation. Evans has presented and/or performed his works at major festivals worldwide. He has composed works for his own ensembles, soloists, chamber ensembles, and choir. In 2022 Evans was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition.
As an educator, Evans has given masterclasses and conducted workshops on improvisation, composition, instrumental practice and creativity at the Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, the New School of Social Research, Royal Academy of Music, Trinity College of Music, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Hochschule für Musik Köln, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Institute of Sonology, Melbourne University, UC San Diego, UC Irvine, University of Toronto, University of Oregon, Cornish College, Oberlin Conservatory, and Cleveland Institute of Music. Between 2019 and 2022 Evans conducted a series of performance-centered workshops with young musicians in Lisbon, Porto and the Azores called Som Crescente. In 2020 he received a grant from the US Embassy in Lisbon to further develop this series.
Evans has worked with some of the leading figures in contemporary music: John Zorn, Pauline Oliveros, Brian Ferneyhough, Kanye West, George Lewis, Anthony Braxton, Mary Halvorson, Craig Taborn, Ambrose Akinmusere, Weasel Walter, Dave Liebman, Ingrid Laubrock, Jeff "Tain" Watts, Tyshawn Sorey, Ikue Mori, Steve Schick, and works with both the International Contemporary and Wet Ink Ensembles as a performer and composer. As an interpreter of notated concert music, Evans has performed works by Varese, Xenakis, Bach, Stravinsky, Elliott Carter, Marcos Balter, Julio Estrada, Agusta Read Thomas, Wagner, Ligeti, and many more.
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Beginning in 2011 the release of the Peter Evans Quintet's album "Ghosts", Evans has been self-producing albums for his label More is More Records.