Peter Foggitt

Composer / Performer

Peter Foggitt is a pianist, organist, composer, and conductor. He made his concerto debut at fourteen, and his BBC Radio 3 debut (Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 3) whilst a finalist at Cambridge. He won the MBF Accompanist’s Prize at the 2013 Kathleen Ferrier Awards, the Pianists’ Prize at the Emmy Destinn Awards and First Prize at the Croydon Concerto Competition, and with his vocal ensemble, Cries of London, the 2011 Royal Over-Seas League Annual Music Competition.

As a solo and ensemble pianist, Foggitt maintains a busy and diverse schedule. He has worked with Trio Ischl, Aurora Orchestra and London Contemporary Orchestra, and has performed as a concerto soloist with orchestras across Britain in repertoire ranging from Handel to Gershwin.

At the organ, Foggitt has appeared as soloist with Covent Garden Chamber Orchestra, and Croydon Symphony Orchestra, as a recitalist, a continuo player, and with choirs including Oxford Voices, Il Suono, The Choir of Hampstead Parish Church, and The Choir of St Bartholomew the Great, and instrumental ensembles including the English Symphony Orchestra. He is in demand as a repetiteur, working particularly in new opera and with Sir John Eliot Gardiner and The Monteverdi Choir.

Commissions for Foggitt’s works have come from cathedrals, opera companies, ensembles, and soloists. Large-scale works include Genesis for Sloane Square Choral Society, the first in a projected series of works based on the York Mystery Plays; Alcina for Barefoot Opera, a re-imagination of Handel’s original; a number of pieces for The London Festival of Contemporary Church Music; and Preludes and Lude-Fugues for The Tunnell Trust. He is currently working on two operas: Fierabras, based on the chanson de geste; and a two-act commission for Size Zero Opera. He also translates libretti and sacred texts from Latin, German and French; he edited the OAE/Vocal Futures St Matthew Passion libretto.

Foggitt has also performed internationally as a baritone, including various solo engagements under the batons of David Willcocks and James Judd, and as an ensemble singer with Tenebrae, The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, and Renaissance specialist ensemble Il Suono. He has been guest Chorus Master at the Royal Opera, Copenhagen for The Devils of Loudun by Penderecki, and for Polish National Opera; he also assisted Lionel Friend at British Youth Opera for A Night at the Chinese Opera by Judith Weir. He has directed the ensemble Cries of London at venues including the Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Wigmore Hall.

It is in the field of improvisation that Foggitt is best known. Acclaimed at the age of seventeen for his “stunning, fire-breathing virtuosity” in extemporisation, he is equally comfortable in classical and contemporary styles, working with jazz trios and improvising classical fugues. He has a long-standing partnership with percussionist Ric Elsworth, and gives regular improvisation recitals.

Peter read for the BA in Music at King’s College, Cambridge, where he was Senior Choral Scholar. After a year as Deputy Director of Music at the Arts Educational School in Tring he undertook postgraduate study in singing, piano, and improvisation at Trinity College of Music with Linda Hirst and Douglas Finch; he completed his MMus at the Guildhall with Martin Roscoe and Eugene Asti. He is grateful for the support of the Watt Trust and the Musicians Benevolent Fund.