Peter Gregson: Touch Peter Gregson

• 1Found06:08
• 2Time05:11
• 3Cycle05:14
• 4Chorale04:56
• 5Held05:19
• 6Touch10:48
• 7Turn07:35
• 8Lost06:09
• Total Runtime51:20

Info for Peter Gregson: Touch

“Touch follows on from my previous album, Lights in the Sky. It comprises eight tracks for analogue synthesiser, cello, piano, and string orchestra. Where Lights in the Sky was saturated, sonically intense, almost ‘spoilt brat’-ish sound, Touch has a more refined palette of sounds. Composers are often asked what their music is about, especially with instrumental music such as this. To me, it sort of defeats the purpose and joy of listening to music. How do we interpret the emotion and meaning of music when we aren’t hand held through listening, or guided by a lyric? Just because music is slow, doesn’t mean that it is sad; just because it is fast, doesn’t make it happy. The same goes for tonality: major music isn’t intrinsically happy, minor music isn’t exclusively sad. Yes, these can be devices for eliciting an emotional response, but they are not in and of themselves complete. For me, this is the magic of music. Where it isn’t objectively about something, it becomes amorphous, changing shape and purpose to fit the ear and mind of the listener. It has many lives and many meanings, none of them right and none of them wrong.” (Peter Gregson)

Peter Gregson is a tremendously talented cellist and composer who is described by The New Yorker as “working at the forefront of the new music scene”. Incredibly versatile, Peter has worked on many successful and innovative projects despite being so young. He has premiered works by composers including Tod Machover, Daníel Bjarnason, Gabriel Prokofiev, Max Richter, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Steve Reich and Sally Beamish. He also collaborates with many of the world’s leading technologists, including Microsoft Labs, United Visual Artists, Reactify and the MIT Media Lab.

Peter’s debut album, Terminal, was released in 2010, followed by his Cello Multitracks consisting of compositions by Gabriel Prokofiev, released in 2012 on Prokofiev’s Nonclassical label. Lights in the Sky his second studio album, composed for cello, piano and analogue synthesisers, was released at Imogen Heap's ‘Reverb Festival' in August 2014.

Peter Gregson, cello
Sarah D'Angelo, violin
Henry Flory, violin
Eunice Kim, violin
Derek Powell, violin
Esme Allen-Creighton, viola
Dana Rokosny, viola
Douglas Jameson, cello
Ali Cook, double bass

Peter Gregson
is a cellist and composer "working at the forefront of the new music scene" (The New Yorker) Recently, he has premiered works by composers including Tod Machover, Daníel Bjarnason, Gabriel Prokofiev, Max Richter, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Steve Reich, and Sally Beamish; he collaborates with many of the world’s leading technologists, including Microsoft Labs, UnitedVisualArtists, Reactify and the MIT Media Lab.

Peter developed and was commissioned to compose ‘The Listening Machine‘, a data sonification of Twitter in collaboration with Daniel Jones and Britten Sinfonia for the BBC/Arts Council’s “The Space”, where it ran continuously between May-January 2013.

His debut solo album, ‘Terminal’, was commissioned by Bowers & Wilkins and launched in April 2010. A limited edition 10′′ vinyl was commissioned by Mute in May 2011, featuring new solo works for Peter written by Max Richter and Jóhann Jóhannsson and was released at the ‘Short Circuit’ Festival at The Roundhouse. In May 2012, Nonclassical released Gabriel Prokofiev’s ‘Cello Multitracks’, a cello suite written for Peter which the two have toured around the world.

'Lights in the Sky', his second studio album, composed for cello, piano, and analogue synthesisers, was released at Imogen Heap's 'Reverb Festival' in August 2014.

His third studio album, TOUCH, will be released on Sono Luminus in August 2015.

In demand for his work across major film and television soundtracks, Spitfire Audio developed a sample library of Peter's extended techniques and sounds from his blue, five-string electric cello, all recorded at Pixel, his studio in London.

The score to his first feature film, 'A Little Chaos' , directed by Alan Rickman and starring Kate Winslet and Matthias Schoenaerts, is available now on Milan Records.

Booklet for Peter Gregson: Touch