PETER GREGORY ASIMOV was born in New York City on October 31, 1991. In September 2006, Peter entered the 9th grade at The Dalton School in New York City. Peter is a double Honors student in the Preparatory Division of the Mannes College of Music. He studies composition with Steven C. Sacco and piano with Genya Paley. Peter is coached in chamber music at Mannes by Eriko Sato (2006-2007), and at Dalton High School by Damian Sokol (2006-2007).
Peter gave his first professional solo recital in CAMI Hall in New York in October 2002. His performance schedule has since taken him to venues ranging from Alaska and California, to Key West and Germany.
 |
The Keys Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Gordon Wright, engaged Peter as guest soloist in 2003 to play the Bach F minor Piano Concerto. In 2004, he was invited back to play both the Mozart F Major Concerto (K 459) and the Mendelssohn G minor Piano Concerto No. 1. In June 2004, he shared the stage at the Sitka Summer Music Festival, playing a solo program and chamber music with director Paul Rosenthal and other international Festival artists. Peter regularly performs for events benefiting schools and organizations, such as his 2003 performance for Meet The Composer. In 2004, Peter was selected to play the title role in “The Mendelssohn Project,” a far-ranging program to revive, present, publish, and record all the composer’s works. Peter plays the music of the young Felix Mendelssohn in ongoing concerts, and regularly appears in performance on behalf of this international foundation. On April 28, 2005, Peter performed the Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11, by Frederic Chopin, with the Anchorage Civic Orchestra, under guest conductor Gordon Wright in the Discovery Theatre of the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts. |
In his review of Peter’s “passionate playing,” Mike Dunham, classical music critic for the Anchorage Daily News, wrote “I wasn’t the only one skeptical about whether such a young person could find the emotion in Chopin’s deeply sensual music. Now I believe. More than that, Asimov definitely succeeded in conveying the soul of the music. Even more, he managed to do it in commendable cooperation with the orchestra.” In fact, his only regret was that a repeat performance had not been scheduled in advance. "I have no doubt that word of mouth alone would have filled the hall for a second appearance."
Peter continues to build upon the enriched chamber music education, environment and exposure to new repertoire in three seasons of study and nurturing with Music@Menlo as a Young Performer in the Festival Chamber Music Institute. While attending Music at Menlo in 2006, Peter performed in the master classes coached by Claude Frank, Pamela Frank, David Finckel, Wu Han, Derek Han. He has received private and chamber ensemble master coachings by generous artists that include Wu Han, Derek Han, Gilbert Kalish, Michael Steinberg and Robert Winter. In the 2004 session, upon hearing Peter in the Mozart Piano Quartet in E flat Major there, Brian Newhouse of American Public Media, wrote: “I remember twelve-year-old Peter who played piano as if he had written those notes, not Mozart.”
On August 12, 2005, Peter and Menlo members played the Dohnányi Piano Quintet No. 1 in C minor in Atherton, CA. The next day, Peter traveled to Germany to perform the Piano Quartet in E Major, Op. 20, by Sergey Taneyev, for public concerts of the Sulzbach-Rosenberg International Music Festival.
Helmut Fischer, who reviewed the Sulzbach-Rosenberg Festival for “Der Neue Tag” wrote, “Peter Asimov let the Scriabin Etude ring out with passion and assurance. He also portrayed the most demanding piano quartet from Taneyev ....it was a truly masterful close for the concert. Here the pianist Asimov shone with the widest possible range of virtuosities. Playing with ease and facility like a supple string of pearls, sinuous and elegant right up to the last stroke. He and the strings formed an intelligent sonorous tapestry.”
An active composer, Peter won an ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Award in 2003 and 2004 and was a finalist in 2002 and 2006. He has premiered more than a dozen of his own works and was a member of Making Score, the rigorous composition lab of the New York Youth Symphony (2003-2005). In April 2003, he performed his ASCAP award-winning piano quartet Seasons Suite in an orchestral arrangement by Gordon Wright, with the Keys Chamber Orchestra.
On October 9, 2005, Peter performed the Chopin Piano Concerto No 1 in E minor, Op. 11, under the baton of Louis Kosma and the Vermont Philharmonic, at the Barre Opera House, in Barre and on October 16 in Stowe, Vermont. As educational outreach, Peter played a solo recital at the Montpelier Middle School. Before the assembly, in his concert attire, he warmed up his fingers in a spontaneous pick-up basketball game in the gymnasium. Afterwords, poised at the keyboard, Peter took questions from more than 300 faculty and students. WCVT classical radio and local newspaper coverage and interviews further built audience attendance those two weeks for this opening program of the Philharmonic season. In addition, in the first half of the Barre and Stowe concerts, which featured fanfares by Aaron Copland and Joan Tower, Peter's own composition, Wedding Quintet in E-flat Major (2003) was performed by instrumentalists of the orchestra.
In his October 12 review in the Times-Argus, "Pianist Wins over Philharmonic Audience," music critic Jim Lowe wrote: "A New York City 13-year-old proved himself not only a fine pianist but a respectable composer at Sunday's Vermont Philharmonic concert at the Barre Opera House. At the opening concert of the 2005-2006 season, the resident community orchestra, conducted by its music director, Louis Kosma, had its largest audience – near capacity – in recent years. Peter Asimov delivered a full-bodied but sensitive performance of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Opus 11. A student at the preparatory division of New York's Mannes College of Music, he delivered the colorful work with a natural lyricism and musicality, as well as a solid and easy technique. Asimov's lyrical flow and grandeur seemed to belong to a more mature performer – and Sunday's audience clearly appreciated it. Kosma and the orchestra accompanied the pianist sensitively, joining the young soloist in delivering the work's grand nature. Asimov was also represented by a piece of his own, his charming Wedding Quintet, for two flutes, horn, viola and bass, performed sensitively by members of the Philharmonic."
In his article for the Montpelier Bridge, Nat Frothingham reported about the second concert in Stowe: "At age 12, Peter wrote the Wedding Quintet. The music is complex, melodic, and mature. It was Peter's astonishing piano technique and surprisingly mature interpretation of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 that brought the audience to its feet at the Stowe concert. After the concert, I reviewed my scribbled impressions. Here's what I had written: range of emotion, control, shape, fluidity, lyricism.' When the concerto ended, and the audience rose to applaud, young Asimov seemed almost unknowing that it was he who was the center of attention. In his self-effacing manner, he seemed somewhat ill at ease that it was he who ignited this demonstration of appreciation and excitement. He captured every heart and his thrilled audience would not let him go..."
On November 13, 2006 Peter was awarded The Jean Schneider Goberman Prize in Composition (Third Prize) for his Piano Quintet in C minor. The prize is awarded to students of Mannes College and the New School for Music for a chamber music composition for piano trio, piano quartet or piano quintet. The winning compositions will be presented in a public concert at the College by the Alaria Chamber Ensemble in 2007.
[Printable Version in Adobe Acrobat format]
Updated: December 18, 2006