Peter Cigleris - Clarinet

Peter has enjoyed a wide and varied career since taking up the clarinet at the age of eleven. His first professional recitals were at the age of 14 in Plymouth with pianist/composer Clive Jenkins; this 8-year partnership still takes Peter around Devon and Cornwall performing in such recital series as the Plymouth International Concert Series. Clive was so impressed by Peter’s playing he decided to compose a clarinet concerto for him, this concerto was premiered in 2000 with the Southwest Sinfonia in Plymouth’s Guildhall in a concert including Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto. In 1997 Peter continued his studies at the Birmingham Conservatoire where his professors were Michael Harris and Colin Parr. Whilst at the Conservatoire Peter won the prestigious John Ireland Chamber Music Award with a performance of that composer’s Fantasy Sonata, he was also awarded a place on the CBSO training scheme that led to extra work with that orchestra. At the Conservatoire Peter performed numerous concertos with the various ensembles at the college, he also developed an interest in early clarinets, which led to a performance with the Conservatoire’s Baroque Capella Orchestra. Peter also gave the première of Guy Woolfenden’s arrangement of Malcolm Arnold’s Pre-Goodman Rag for wind ensemble; later he performed the complete Arnold concerto with the Warwickshire Symphony Orchestra under Guy Woolfenden as part of Malcolm Arnold’s 80th birthday celebrations.

Peter graduated from the Royal College of Music in 2002 with a PGDip, where his professors have been Janet Hilton, Richard Hosford, Robert Hill and Tim Lines. During the summer of 2002 he was awarded the Prix de Fossat with pianist Gina Kruger for their chamber music collaboration. Whilst in France they were also invited to perform for a private reception for Her Majesty the Queen of Denmark. Peter has recently been involved with several projects most notably with the BBC as a member of the Orchestra Revolutionnaire et Romantique in their Docu-drama ‘EROICA’. Other projects have included the formation of a wind octet ‘Octanphonie’. Peter was also recently awarded a place on the prestigious Jerwood Foundation Scholarship for Young Players in association with the orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.