Composer, concert organizer and teacher, Peter Hatch’s works are in a large number of genres, from orchestral and chamber music to instrumental theatre, electroacoustics and installations. He received a DMA degree from the University of British Columbia following MusBac and MusM degrees from the University of Toronto. His works have won recognition with composer competitions held by CBC Radio, SOCAN, the Winnipeg New Music Festival and Vancouver New Music and have been performed at festivals such as the ISCM World Music Days, the Darmstadt Ferienkurse fur Neue Musik, the Guelph Spring Festival, Scotiafest, the Vancouver New Music Festival, the Percussive Arts Society, the Vancouver Early Music Festival and the International Computer Music Conference. His works have been recorded on numerous compact discs under the CBC Musica Viva, CMC Centrediscs, Conaccord, CBC and Artifact labels.
Theatrical and multi-media elements have been incorporated into many of his works, an interest which has grown from extending traditional concert music performance practices and from collaborations with director David McMurray Smith, architect Dereck Revington and choreographers David Earle and Bill James. The writings of Gertrude Stein have also played an important role in his compositions and has resulted in such works as the full evening instrumental theatre piece ‘Mounting Picasso’ and his very short opera ‘Asks Alice’. Recent works have investigated ‘revisiting’ masterworks in Western music, as heard through modern ears - affected by constant exposure to these works through movies, television and other media as well as in doctor’s offices and shopping malls, in elevators and while on hold on the telephone.
As well as his compositional work, Peter has been very active as the artistic director of new music ensembles and festivals. In 1985 he founded NUMUS Concerts, a Waterloo based new music organization. He has been the Artistic Director of several festivals of new music, including the 1989 ‘5th Stream’ Festival and the 1995 ‘Coming Together’ festival.
Peter was Composer-in-Residence with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony from 1999-2003 and is currently Artistic Director of the Open Ears Festival of Music and Sound. Peter is also Professor at The Faculty of Music, Wilfrid Laurier University, where he was University Research Professor for the 2006-07 academic year.
Contact information:
Faculty of Music
Wilfrid Laurier University
Waterloo, Ontario
Canada, N2L 3C5
Tel: (519) 884-0710 ext. 2286
phatch@wlu.ca
