Biography
Job Title: Senior Lecturer
Courses Taught: BA (Hons) Music (Classical)
Specialisms: Classical guitar
Peter Batchelar (BA (Hons), GRNCM, PGCE) won a bursary at UEA to study with Julian Byzantine in London before going on to study at the RNCM with Gordon Crosskey and John Williams.
He formed the Aguado Guitar Duo with Kenneth Heggie and became one of the first ensembles to join Live Music Now in 1979. They gave many recitals and workshops throughout Britain, toured Savoie in France with the Endellion Quartet and gave a concert in Paris with Yehudi Menuhin, President of LMN. The duo played all over the world, mostly on British Council tours, in Australia, Malaysia, India, Canada, China, Korea, Hong Kong and the Middle East. They made several recordings and undertook masterclasses and workshops in many different countries.
Peter has worked with Opera North, the Liverpool Philharmonic, Scottish Ballet, Northern Sinfonia and Manchester Camerata. He has accompanied several singers on both lute and guitar and also gives recitals with flute. He was a member of the Penna Trio (harp, mandolin and guitar) which, with Eastern Arts commissioned a new work (Obrecht Motteten II) from Michael Finnissy for a Contemporary Music Network Tour. Peter played with Opera North in Shostakovichs’ Cheryomushki which toured to the 2009 Bregenz Festival. Recently he was a soloist with the Amici Ensemble in the first northern performance of Karl Jenkins’ The Peacemakers.
Peter was a founder member of EGTA(UK) - [European Guitar Teacher's Association] and was Secretary for three years. He has had a leading role in editing the EGTA series of educational guitar music, and has been instrumental in formulating and implementing new ideas and syllabus changes for the ABRSM.. His arrangements of 33 Czech Folk-Songs by Petr Eben for two guitars is published by Chanterelle. Peter was a member of the working party for the FMS A Common Approach curriculum document which was published in 2002. Between 2006 and 2008, together with Richard Wright, he developed a completely new syllabus for the ABRSM which involved the publication of seven new books: two volumes of Time Pieces for Guitar, Scarlatti for Guitar, Weiss for Guitar and completely revised books of scales and sight-reading. This is first time the AB has published music for guitar. Peter was a consultant for the ABRSM publication Raising an Amazing Musician (2009)
He has taught at both Manchester and Sheffield Universities. In September 2009, he was appointed a Higher Education External Examiner at the RNCM.
He has published several books of guitar music for beginners and ensembles. His arrangement of Debussy's Rêverie, for guitar duo, has been recorded by John Williams and Julian Bream.
