Peter Dickson Lopez (1950 - )

Early Years Peter began studying piano at the age of six. However after several lessons, Peter complained to his mother that he wasn’t learning anything. About a year later, Peter continued piano lessons, this time with Theodore Gorbacheff, a Russian choral director and piano teacher living in Berkeley. Mr. Gorbacheff guided Peter’s musical development for the next ten years, introducing him to Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, and of course Russian composers like Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Scriabin. Peter’s 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. During those early formative years prior to college, Peter was already performing regularly for church. In addition, Mr. Gorbacheff would often have Peter accompany his vocal men’s quartet and vocal soloists, as well as have him perform as piano soloist. Thus, even before college Peter was not only a student of music but also a practicing performer. Indeed, during his senior year in high school Peter formed a jazz trio (piano, drums, bass), and together they played a few paying “gigs”.

College Years

Despite his early interest in, and life-long passion for, composition and improvisation, it was piano that Peter majored in as an undergraduate. During his first year in college, Peter studied with Edward Shadbolt at the University of the Pacific Music Conservatory in Stockton. Under Mr. Shadbolt’s guidance Peter continued to develop, expand, and mature as a pianist and musician. The greatest lesson learned while studying with Mr. Shadbolt was how to relax and how to play with “arm weight”. Peter learned that this is the secret to tonal control, and Peter continued to develop this technique over many years of studying and performing.

Peter also sang with the A Cappella chorus at Stockton, going on tour with the group throughout the Pacific Northwest, and it was this experience, under the direction of Dr. J. Russel Bodley at Stockton, that Peter began to develop a close affinity for and appreciation of the voice and choral music. Indeed, having not ever sung before (but apparently having a good enough ear to sing a cappella), Peter was rather surprised that Dr. Bodley graciously admitted Peter to this elite group. This turned out not to be the only time that an established musician saw potential in Peter.  More