New York, NY
Peter Wetzler is an award winning composer-musician-music director scoring for film, theatre and television with a uniquely diverse musical background. While classically trained in piano Peter was guest soloist with symphonies at an early age and studied conducting and composition at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria.
From Europe he moved into jazz and non-western music having played in gamelon and avante garde ensembles while writing music for post- modern choreographers such as Bill T Jones, David Dorfman and Susan Marshall and touring Europe and North America with Laura Dean. The strong rhythmic drive of his music blended with the raw experimental influence of the “downtown” New York City music scene has made his style much sought after for unique film and television scoring ranging from animation and films featured at MOMA and PBS Great Performances to National Geographic’s permanent multimedia installation in Washington DC.
Recent events include conducting the Hudson Valley Philharmonic in a live performance of his score to Anezka Sebek’s film “Landfill” at the Hudson Valley Film Festival and Isabel Barton’s film “Julie of the Spirits” at the Woodstock Film Festival.
Wetzler scored his first feature film “The Warboy” in Toronto in 1984 and performed at the Music Gallery, Gladstone Hotel and Arraymusic while living in Toronto. His ensemble “The Repeatos” opened the 2007 Baltimore Jazz Festival and played in Toronto’s “Ambient Ping” series. Recently he completed scoring the third season of the hit comedy series “Rentagoalie” and a documentary series on the Hudson River. Returning to the piano, Wetzler has recently produced “Falling Awake” a collection solo piano improvisations on CD under his own Label “Sound Forms” and is finishing up 3 more CD’s to be released in 2011, a solo piano CD, a soundtrack CD of the poems of Julie Hedrick and “The Repeatos” 2nd CD of eclectic music featuring fiddle, clarinet, harmonica, accordion, voice, percussion, bagpipes, balalaika, and electronics.
In 2010 Peter returned to the solo piano and released the CD “Falling Awake” followed by “Green” in 2011. These explorations are a culmination of his years as a theater and film composer combined with his classical, jazz and world music influences. Unlike the jazz tradition of improvising on a known song these were “sittings” at the piano with no preconceived ideas of what to play other than exploring harmony and rhythm, time and space and he has begun touring “The Piano Project around US and Canada and soon Europe and Asia.
Here’s a recent article written by the Hudson Valley Almanac about the Peter Wetzler Solo Piano Project. http://www.hudsonvalleyalmanacweekly.com/2012/08/16/playing-the-moment-with-peter-wetzler/
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