Sheppard Skærved Peter
Grammy-nominated violinist Peter Sheppard Skærved is the only living violinist to have performed on the violins of Niccolo Paganini, Joseph Joachim and G B Viotti. He is the dedicatee of over 400 works for solo violin. His collaboration with composers began in his late teens, working with the great Hans Werner Henze. Since then composers who have written works for him include Nigel Clarke, Judith Weir, Michael Finnissy, Poul Ruders, Jeremy Dale Roberts, Mihailo Trandafilovski, George Rochberg, Elliott Schwartz, Peter Sculthorpe, Judith Bingham, Sadie Harrison, Dmitri Smirnov, Elena Firsova, Howard Skempton, Evis Sammoutis, Jörg Widmann, Michael Alec Rose, David Gorton, Rosalind Page, Sıdıka Őzdil, Ian Wilson, Peter Dickinson, John Woolrich, Edward Cowie, Jeremy Thurlow, Naji Hakim, Volodmyr Runchak, Laurie Bamon, and Douglas Young. Peter’s pioneering work on music for violin alone has resulted in research, performances and recordings of cycles by Tartini, Telemann, Bach, de Bériot, and, most recently, his project, ‘Preludes and Vollenteries’, which brings together 200 unknown works from the 17th Century, from composers including Colombi, Matteis, Marini and Lonati, with the Wren and Hawksmoor Churches in London’s Square Mile, and is now travelling to Austria and the USA. His work with museums has resulted in long term projects at institutions including the Metropolitan Museum, New York City, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the British Museum, Galeria Rufino Tamayo Mexico City, and the exhibition ‘Only Connect’, which he curated at the National Portrait Gallery, London. Most recently his ‘Tegner’ commissioned by the Bergen International Festival, is a close collaboration with the great Norwegian abstract artist, Jan Groth, resulting in a set of solo Caprices, premiering at Kunsthallen Bergen, and travelling to galleries in Denmark, the USA and even Svalbard/ Spitzbergen. As a writer, Peter has published a monograph on the Victorian artist/musician John Orlando Parry, many articles in journals worldwide, and most recently, ‘Practice: Walk’, part of the Camberwell Press ‘Walking Cities: London’ series. Peter is the founder and leader of the Kreutzer Quartet and the artistic director of the ensemble Longbow. He is the Viotti Lecturer at the Royal Academy of Music and was elected Fellow there in 2013. He is married to the Danish writer Malene Skærved and they live in Wapping. For more information, recordings, films and articles by and about Peter Sheppard Skærved, go to :
