ABOUT
Award-winning Swiss lutenist Peter Croton is an active performer and recording artist as soloist and accompanist. In the press he has been called a “lyric poet of the lute” and has been praised for his “breath-taking virtuosity” and “astonishing range of tone colors and dynamics”. His main focus is on stylistically-expressive performance of 16-18th century music, with occasional forays into 19th-century music on the romantic guitar music, as well as into songwriting.
He won first prize at the 1984 Erwin Bodky Competition for Early Music in Cambridge MA, and also won prizes at the Guitar ’84 Lute Competition in Toronto and 1983 Concert Artists' Guild competition in New York City. He has recorded numerous CDs (Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, Virgin, Carpe Diem, Channel Classics, Harmonia Mundi France, Guild, Centaur, Musicaphon, Balance und Proprius) and appeared on television and radio as soloist and chamber musician. Peter’s regular duo partners have included the singers Derek Lee Ragin and Theresia Bothe, and he has appeared at many international festivals including, among others, the Rheingau Musik Festival, Kissinger Sommer, Festspiele Europäische Wochen Passau, Tage Alter Musik Regensburg, Staufener Musikwoche, Innsbrucker Festwochen der alten Musik, Niedersächsische Musiktage, Mosel Festwochen, Les Arts Jaillissants – Savoie, Festival des Cordes Sensibles, Early Music Vancouver, Early Music Guild Seattle, and various Lute Society Festivals.
Born in the USA, Peter Croton lives in Switzerland where he teaches lute and basso continuo at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, as well as lute, historical performance practice and guitar continuo at the Conservatories of Basel and Bern. His musical activities, however, are not limited to early music. In addition to playing cello, at six he began performing as folk guitarist and singer. At twelve he began classical guitar lessons with Leon Atkinson, and later played guitar in various jazz ensembles. Starting in 1979 he studied lute and classical guitar with Dr. Loris Chobanian (Oberlin Conservatory of Music) and then lute with Eugen Dombois and Hopkinson Smith (Schola Cantorum Basiliensis).
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