Adagio No. 1: No. 1a (Piano) (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781461016519)

Peter Dickson Lopez (1950 - ) American composer and pianist, is best known for his traditional, though eclectic style. Peter began studying piano at the age of six. His passion for composition emerged early when as a child he began to write pieces emulating the style of Bach whom he was studying at the time. For Peter, performance and composition merged into one as he continued his studies in piano and composition in college. Indeed, this view of performance and composition was echoed by Ralph Shapey with whom Peter worked as a fellowship composer at Tanglewood: Composition is performance on paper! Prior to Tanglewood, where Peter also met Gunther Schuller and audited Leonard Bernstein's conducting classes, Peter had already earned his Ph.D. degree in Music Composition from the University of California at Berkeley. During his last two years in the doctoral program from 1976-78, Peter lived in Paris, France after having been awarded the prestigious George Ladd Paris Prize from the U.C. Berkeley Music Department. During this sojourn, Peter composed day and night and went to many concerts where he had the opportunity to hear the music of Xenakis, Messiaen, Boulez, Berio, Stockhausen, and many other European composers, often with those legendary composers in attendance. The personal connection Peter feels with this legacy has broadened throughout the years: as piano student of Edward Shadbolt at the University of the Pacific in Stockton (Ed had been a student of Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály); as composition student under Joaquin Nin-Culmell (himself an internationally known concert pianist and composer who had also studied with such luminaries as Manuel de Falla and Paul Dukas); and as a master class piano student of Karl Ulrich Schnabel (son of renowned Artur Schnabel). Lopez' propensity to explore and incorporate techniques from a variety of sources prompted a colleague at Tanglewood to comment, "You have the fortune (or misfortune) of falling through the cracks, of not belonging to any particular 'school'." Lopez' works have been performed in Europe and across the U.S. Learn more about the composer at http: //www.peterdicksonlopez.com.