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Composer, musician, author, satirist—Peter Schickele is internationally
recognized as one of the most versatile artists in the field of
music. His works, now well in excess of 100 for symphony orchestras,
choral groups, chamber ensembles, voice, movies and television,
have given him “a leading role in the ever-more-prominent school
of American composers who unselfconsciously blend all levels of
American music.” (John Rockwell, The New York Times)
His commissions are numerous and varied, ranging from works for
the National Symphony, the Saint Louis Symphony, The Minnesota Opera,
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, The Audubon and Lark
String Quartets, the Minnesota Orchestral Association, and many
other such organizations to compositions for distinguished instrumentalists
and singers. His recent premieres include the Concerto for
Cello and Orchestra “In Memoriam F.D.R.;” performed by
Paul Tobias with the Pasadena Symphony under Jorge Mester;
the New Century Suite, a concerto for saxophone quartet and orchestra,
commissioned by the New Century Saxophone Quartet and premiered
by them with the North Carolina Symphony; the New Goldberg
Variations for cello and piano, performed by Yo Yo Ma and Emanuel
Ax; the Symphony No. 1 “Songlines,” premiered by the National
Symphony under Leonard Slatkin, and since performed across the country
by orchestras including the New York Philharmonic and the Cleveland
Orchestra; the String Quartet No. 5 “A Year in the Country,”
given by the Audubon Quartet; the Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra,
written for the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra in Columbus, Ohio;
the Concerto for Chamber Orchestra, performed at the OK Mozart Festival
with Ransom Wilson conducting; the Quintet No. 2 for Piano
and Strings, performed by the Lark Quartet with the composer at
the piano; songs and instrumental music for Sheridan’s
The Rivals, staged in Portland and Denver; Little Mushrooms for
piano four hands; Two Songs on Elizabethan Lyrics; Blue Set
No. 1, a jazz string quartet commissioned by the Greene Quartet
and recorded on the Virgin label; and Blue Set No. 2 for four
bassoons, commissioned by the Bassoon Brothers. The Armadillo
String Quartet has presented annual concerts of Mr. Schickele’s
chamber music in Los Angeles since 1991.
Among the recordings recently released are Blue Set No. 2 for four
bassoons, played by the Bassoon Brothers on the Crystal label;
the Grammy Award-winning Hornsmoke, featuring the title piece as
well as Brass Calendar and other works for brass quintet, performed
by the Chestnut Brass Company on Newport Classics; Schickele
on a Lark, including the Quintet No. 2 for Piano and Strings, String
Quartet No. 2 “In Memoriam” and the Sextet for Strings,
with the Lark Quartet on Arabesque; and another album of chamber
music for strings, including String Quartet No. 1 “American
Dreams,” the Quintet No. 1 for Piano and Strings, and String
Quartet No. 5 “A Year in the Country,” with the
Audubon Quartet on Centaur. Other compositions may be heard
on RCA Red Seal, Vanguard, CRI, D’Note, Carlton, Koch International
and MusicMasters.
Peter Schickele arranged one of the musical segments for the Disney
animated feature film, Fantasia 2000. He also created the
musical score for the film version of Maurice Sendak’s children’s
classic Where the Wild Things Are, issued on videocassette along
with another Sendak classic In the Night Kitchen (Weston Woods),
which Mr. Schickele narrates.
Among his ongoing projects is a weekly, syndicated radio program,
Schickele Mix, which has been heard nationwide over Public Radio
International since January 1992 and which won ASCAP’s prestigious
Deems Taylor Award.
In 1993 Telarc released a recording of Prokofiev’s Sneaky Pete
(a.k.a. Peter) and the Wolf and Saint-Saëns’ Carnival
of the Animals with new texts authored and narrated by Peter Schickele,
accompanied by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra under Yoel Levi.
Mr. Schickele gave the New York premiere of Sneaky Pete and the
Wolf at Carnegie Hall as part of the 1993 Toyota Comedy Festival
and has performed the Saint-Saëns work with major American
orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic at its gala New
Year’s Eve concert in 1991. He also continues to tour
with a program of original cabaret songs, which he sings from the
piano with the harmonizing assistance of David Düsing.
Another program, Condition of My Heart, presents reflections on
a long marriage in a continuous montage of poems by Susan Sindall
and songs by Peter Schickele. As a lecturer, he has appeared
in cities coast to coast; the Smithsonian Institution presented
him in a series of four integrated lectures in 1997. Peter
Schickele is currently touring with his close acquaintance Prof
Schickele in two new programs, Peter Schickele Meets P.D.Q. Bach
and P.D.Q. Bach and Peter Schickele: The Jekyll and Hyde Tour.
Peter Schickele was born in Ames, Iowa, and brought up in
Washington, D.C. and Fargo, North Dakota. He graduated from
Swarthmore in 1957, having had the distinction of being the only
music major (as he had been, earlier, the only bassoonist in Fargo),
and by that time he had already composed and conducted four orchestral
works, a great deal of chamber music and some songs. He studied
composition with Roy Harris and Darius Milhaud, and at The Juilliard
School of Music with Vincent Persichetti and William Bergsma.
Then, under a Ford Foundation grant, he composed music for high
schools in Los Angeles before returning to teach at Juilliard in
1961. In 1965 he gave up teaching to become the freelance
composer/performer he has been ever since.
In the course of his career Schickele has also created music
for four feature films, among them the prize-winning Silent Running,
as well as for documentaries, television commercials, several Sesame
Street segments and an underground movie that he has never seen
in its finished state. He was also one of the composer/lyricists
for Oh! Calcutta!, and has arranged for Joan Baez, Buffy Sainte-Marie
and other folk singers.
Mr. Schickele and his wife, the poet Susan Sindall, reside
in New York City and at an upstate hideaway where he concentrates
on composing. His son, Mathew, and his daughter, Karla are
involved in various alternative rock groups, both as composers and
performers. Karla plays bass for Ida and records her own songs
on Tiger Style Records.
To learn more about Peter Schickele, please visit:
http://www.schickele.com/
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