BIOGRAPHY

Freelance composer, conductor, Peter Willsher had led an active musical life in England before emigrating to Canada in 1988. In England he had been the director of music at several schools noted for their choral and orchestral programs, including sung performances in Westminster Abbey, and the Goldsmith, Queen Elizabeth and Royal Albert Halls. Under his direction students (several of whom later became professional musicians) attained a high standard of musical performance. A scholarship student, both at the West Kent College of Further Education (a college for the creative arts in Tunbridge Wells, Kent) and at the TrinityCollege of Music. He received a licentiate in Clarinet (L.T.C.L.), and a graduate diploma (G.T.C.L. Music Education), majoring in piano, from the Trinity College of Music. From 1966 to the present he has conducted much of the standard repertoire, both orchestral and choral. He received training as a conductor at the International Conductor's Course (Siena, Italy) directed by Maestro Franco Ferrara, and at the Trinity College of Music, under Bernard Keeffe, and attended scores of rehearsals in London, and Glyndebourne. His musical activities are many and varied. He was Principal Clarinet in the East Sussex Youth Orchestra, was a member of three brass bands (Tuba), the Tunbridge Wells Symphony Rehearsal Orchestra, and has played percussion in several orchestral concerts, and drums in several "pop" groups. He also played saxophone in several musical productions, and formed a successful college band in which he played the string bass. While at Trinity College he was the Orchestral Manager of the Young Musician's Symphony Orchestra. As well as being a member of a church choir for ten years (as a boy soprano, alto, and bass), he has sung in several choral societies, including the Trinity College Choir, and the Alexandra Choir, both directed by Charles Proctor. As a professional conductor, he has directed several choirs and orchestras in Ontario and Quebec: the Cornwall Centennial Choir; the Brockville Community Choir; the Cantabile Chorale and Orchestra in Montreal (formerly The Knight Singers); the Parkdale United Church Orchestra; He has also participated as Musical Director or Choral Director for several theatrical productions (including the Upper Canada Playhouse production of "Bingo Night" in Morrisburg (1991), and the Glen Theatre Production of "The Man of La Mancha" in Cornwall (1990)). More recently, he wrote the music for a production of "The Miracle Worker". Which he subsequently orchestrated as "The Helen Keller Symphony (1998)". He is a prolific composer who writes in a variety of styles. For the students at West Heath School he wrote several cantatas, piano pieces and a song cycle for piano and string accompaniment. He set the Siegfried Sassoon poem “Everyone Suddenly Burst Out Singing”to music, which is currently published by Boosey and Hawkes. Recently his creative activities have been commissions for full orchestra, the ‘Helen Keller Symphony’, ‘America’s Suite’, and for chamber orchestra, ‘Roots and Wings’. For the piano, ‘New Life’ and some festive choral works. He has written for television and radio, and has even been known to write popular ballads. He has just completed a piece for Viola and String Orchestra entitled Intermezzo, which will receive its world premier in July with Kevin James, a well known Ottawa violist. His next project will be a Missa Brevis for the Cantabile Chorale in Montreal, it will highlight the plight of underprivileged children. Using the marvels of modern technology, all his new compositions are published by his own company, Willsher Music.