Peter Knell

Title: String Quartet No. 2 (Three California Landscapes)
Commission: 2006
Completed: 2008
Instrumentation: string quartet
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Praised for being “gratefully idiomatic” (Los Angeles Times) and for its “subtle virtuosity” (MusicWeb International), Peter Knell’s music is meticulously crafted for both instruments and voices, making full use of their expressive and coloristic potential. He is deeply invested in musical structure as a crucible to intensify the affective experience of the listener, and he has consistently been rewarded by the enthusiastic reception of his work by audiences and performers.

Peter has received numerous awards in national and international competitions, including First Prizes in the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s 10th New Music Festival International Composers Competition, the Indiana State University Contemporary Music Festival/Louisville Orchestra Prize, and the Omaha Symphony Guild International New Music Competition, as well as Second Prizes in the Fourth International Witold Lutoslawski Composers Competition, the First International Composers’ Competition “In Memoriam Zoltán Kodály,” and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s Young Composers Competition. Peter was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship, a BMI Student Composer Award, two ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composers Awards, grants from the Paloheimo Foundation and Meet the Composer, and commissions from the Fromm Music Foundation/Ying Quartet, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, Utah Arts Festival, Lyris Quartet, Oakland East Bay Symphony, and Dale Warland Singers, among others.