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Peter Knight

Peter Knight (b. 1965)

Australian trumpeter-composer Peter Knight is a multidisciplinary musician who has gained wide acclaim for his eclectic approach, which integrates jazz, world music, and experimental traditions. He leads several projects of his own and appears as a soloist in a range of settings, he also composes for theatre and film, and has created sound installations.

Peter appears internationally, with recent highlights including high profile performances with his group Way Out West at Montreal Jazz Festival, Vancouver Jazz Festival, and Veneto Jazz Festival. In 2009 Way Out West also toured Korea and Japan including concerts at Takatsuki Jazz Festival. Recent solo (trumpet and laptop) performances include the Banff Centre of the Arts (Canada) and KuLe for Labor Sonor (Berlin); in 2009/2010 he also appeared with Erik Griswold and his Wide Alley project at the Auckland Festival, Sydney Opera House, and Vancouver and Ottawa jazz festivals.

Peter is the recipient of numerous grants and awards. In 2009 he won (with Way Out West) the Bell Award for ‘Australian Jazz Ensemble of the Year.’ In 2008 he was nominated for the APRA Awards, ‘Jazz Composition of the Year.’ In 2007 he was awarded the Rolston Music Fellowship by the Banff Centre for the Arts, which enabled him to take up a composer’s residency in October 2007. Peter’s work has also been supported by grants from The Ian Potter Trust, Australia Council for the Arts, Arts Victoria, Alan C. Rose Trust, Australia/Korea Foundation, Australian International Cultural Council, and The Myer Foundation. He was the 2005 recipient of the Keith and Elizabeth Murdoch Travelling Fellowship (VCA).

Peter has released six albums of his compositions in the last eight years with ensembles including Way Out West, his eponymously titled quartet, and the 5+2 Brass Ensemble. His releases have received international acclaim: “Honest, inventive and original.” Hour Magazine Montreal. “Combines different styles seamlessly, [and] succeeds where so many other world music fusion groups fail.” Vancouver Sun. “An unusual and beguiling sound.” Cadence Review (New York). “Quietly forceful.” The Age.

In addition to the projects he leads, Peter has performed and recorded with a diverse range of local and international artists including: Adam Simmons, Adrian Sherriff’s ‘Oynsemble’, Hugh Fraser Quintet (Canada), Quinsin Nachoff (Canada), Kate Neal’s ‘Dead Horse Wind and String Ensemble’ (composition commission), Misinterprotato, Grand Union Orchestra (UK), Allan Browne, Ren Walters’ ‘This Ensemble’, Giorgio Magnanensi (Italy), Christian Pruvost (France), Erik Griswold’s ‘Wide Alley’ and ‘Ecstatic Music’ projects, Scott Tinkler, Stephen Magnusson, The Violent Femmes (USA), Spiderbait, You Am I, The Saints, and reggae star Horace Andy (Jamaica/UK).

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Album Review

Trevor Watts' Original Drum Orchestra: The Art Is In The Rhythm Volume 2

Read "The Art Is In The Rhythm Volume 2" reviewed by Chris May


A co-founder of London's pioneering Spontaneous Music Ensemble with drummer John Stevens in the mid 1960s, saxophonist Trevor Watts has straddled an unusually wide spectrum of genres. With SME he explored an area of free jazz which, in deliberate contrast to contemporary American adventurers such as Ornette Coleman or members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, wholly rejected melody and rhythm. At the other end of the spectrum Watts has been involved in jazz rock.

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Interview

Peter Knight's Invisible Cities

Read "Peter Knight's Invisible Cities" reviewed by Miriam Zolin


Peter Knight's 5+2 Brass Ensemble has recently released Invisible Cities and Other Works, on Rufus Records. The CD comprises compositions inspired by Italo Calvino's book Invisible Cities, which is a series of short and often surreal pieces about fictitious cities, described by Marco Polo to Kublai Khan as a series of conversations. Peter Knight is based in Melbourne, Australia. All About Jazz talked to him recently about the CD.

All About Jazz: What was it about Calvino's Invisible Cities that ...

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The Bulletin September 2006 “Melbourne trumpeter Peter Knight belongs to the "less is more" school of jazz trumpet; in the tradition of players like Kenny Wheeler and Tomasz Stanko, he doesn’t produce effusive streams of notes, but the notes he plays carry more weight by virtue of the space that surrounds them, and the expressive weight invested in them.”

The Weekend Australian June 2010 Rating: * * * * 1/2 “Pushing the Asian/Australian jazz concept even further... Much of this successful exploration is due to leader/trumpeter Peter Knight’s multi-faceted compositions and the stunning versatility of Dung Nguyen’s contributions on various Vietnamese instruments and modified guitar.”

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

The Art Is In The...

Jazz In Britain
2023

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The Effects of Weather

Jazzhead (Australia)
2010

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