WELCOME BACK! The 2021 concert season began on May 5 with the first of four, free Noon Music in May concerts. July will bring the opening of Music in the Meadow and Gazebo Concerts, and a bonus concert on July 14.

Click on the CONCERTS tab above. Choose MUSIC IN THE MEADOW, NOON MUSIC IN MAY, or GAZEBO CONCERTS from the drop-down menu. Tickets for the Music in the Meadow concerts will go on sale in June.

If you wish to make a donation to sustain Stowe Performing Arts, please send a check to Stowe Performing Arts, PO Box 3283, Stowe, VT 05672. Your contributions are fully tax-deductible and will be greatly appreciated. If you prefer to pay by credit card, visit this site again soon.

NOON MUSIC IN MAY
Noon – 1 pm
Wednesday, May 12, 2021

PETER SYKES, organ

Peter Sykes is one of the most distinguished and versatile keyboard artists performing today.

His playing has variously been called “compelling and moving,” “magnificent and revelatory,” and “bold, imaginative, and amazingly accurate.” He has appeared in recital for the American Guild of Organists, the Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society, the Organ Historical Society, American Institute of Organbuilders, International Society of Organbuilders, at the Library of Congress, Boston Early Music Festival, Aston Magna Festival, New England Bach Festival, Portland Chamber Music Festival, New Hampshire Music Festival, and with Ensemble Project Ars Nova, The King’s Noyse, Musica Antiqua Köln, Blue Heron, and throughout the United States, including an appearance in Boston’s Jordan Hall as a featured soloist in the Bank of Boston Emerging Artists Celebrity Series. He is frequently heard on the nationally syndicated radio program “Pipedreams.”  Appearances include an all-Bach inaugural recital on a new organ built by Fritz Noack for the Langholtskirkja in Reykjavik, Iceland, Bach’s Goldberg Variations for the Cambridge Society for Early Music and at Music Sources in Berkeley, CA, Manuel de Falla’s Harpsichord Concerto with the Chameleon Arts Ensemble, the Schumann Piano Quintet on original instruments with the Van Swieten Quartet, Samuel Barber’s organ concerto Toccata Festiva and a pedal piano recital of works of Schumann and Alkan at Southern Adventist University in Collegedale, Tennessee. In March 2004 he was given the honor of performing the dedication recital on the newly restored 1800 Tannenberg two-manual organ in Old Salem, North Carolina, an event featured on the nationally broadcast television show CBS Sunday Morning. He was a member of the continuo team for the Boston Early Music Festival opera productions of Cavalli’s Ercole Amante, Lully’s Thésée and Psyché and Conradi’s Ariadne. He also appears regularly in concert and on recordings with Boston Baroque and Aston Magna. With Christa Rakich he created Tuesdays With Sebastian, an independent two-year benefit concert series in which he and Ms. Rakich performed the entire keyboard works of Johann Sebastian Bach for the organ and harpsichord in thirty-four recitals. He has premiered new works by Dan Locklair, James Woodman, and Joel Martinson, and has performed well over twenty-five dedication recitals for new or rebuilt organs. He also performs frequently on the clavichord and was one of two featured players on this instrument at the 2009 Boston Early Music Festival. In May 2011 he performed clavichord recitals for the British and Dutch Clavichord Societies in London and Amsterdam, at Fenton House in London and the Cobbe Collection at Hatchlands, and for the “Party in the City” night of concerts as part of the International Music Festival in Bath. In May and June 2014 he returned to Europe for concerts including Domaene Dahlem in Berlin and St. Remi Basilica in Reims.

He holds degrees from the New England Conservatory, where he studied with Gabriel Chodos, Blanche Winogron, Mireille Lagacé, Robert Schuneman, and Yuko Hayashi, and Concordia University in Montreal, where he studied with Bernard Lagacé.In 1978 he was winner of the Chadwick Medal from the New England Conservatory for outstanding undergraduate achievement; in the same year, he was a winner of the school’s annual concerto competition, playing the Harpsichord Concerto of Frank Martin.  

In demand as a teacher and mentor of aspiring professional performers, he is Associate Professor of Music and Chair of the Historical Performance Department at Boston University. In the spring of 2014 he was invited to join the faculty of the Historical Performance Department at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City as its principal instructor of harpsichord. Since 1985 he has served as Director of Music at First Church in Cambridge, Congregational. He is Chair of the Organ Library Committee of the Boston Chapter of the American Guild of Organists and has been adjudicator for competitions sponsored by the American Guild of Organists, the Royal Canadian College of Organists, and the Bach International Harpsichord Festival in Montreal as well as the Broadwood Harpsichord Competition in London and the Miami International Organ Competition. A member of the board of the Cambridge Society for Early Music, he is a founding board member and current president of the Boston Clavichord Society.

Seating is limited for fully vaccinated attendees. Social distancing, masks, proof of COVID vaccinations and reservations are required. Click HERE for information, including how to reserve your seat.