It
was at Purchase where Mr. Gross received his first commissions: the ballet Irruptions,
and music for a production of Athol Fugard's South African drama Boesman and Lena.
He began teaching woodwinds upon graduation at the prestigious North Shore Performing
Arts Academy, as well as giving tutorials in Composition and Music Theory. In
1997, as Composer-in-Residence at Searingtown Elementary School he created a program
designed to teach children of various grade levels to compose a piece of original
music, to be performed. A challenging project, Peter used a combination of simple
contemporary and tonal techniques, culminating in an innovative and collaborative
effort.
In 1998 he began his conducting studies in earnest with the composer/conductor
Gary Fagin at the New York Conducting Institute, and soon found an appointment
as Conductor of the Arumdaun Church Youth Orchestra in Bethpage, NY. Also at this
time Peter was engaged in comprising a collection of solo Clarinet arrangements
for HLH Publications, including the Second Movement of Mozart's Haffner" Symphony,
Chopin's Prelude in Db-Major "Raindrops," the famous Adagio
from Beethoven's Sonate Pathetique, and Telemann's Sonate in E-Minor,
with originally composed piano accompaniment.
Soon afterwards Warner Brothers
Music engaged Mr. Gross to produce a sheet music arrangement of the hit song "I
Want it That Way" by the Back Street Boys, a definite departure from his
classical background. From this point forward he started working much more actively in music
publication, producing various scores from 1999-2002 (including the Sonata
in E-Major and New York Suite, by Ken Hatfield and published by Arthur
Circle Music). Following this was the editing/engraving of the entire score
for renown film, stage and television actress Tovah Feldshuh’s Tallulah, Hallelujah, the Off Broadway show which
ran for six months to sold-out audiences at the Douglas Fairbanks Theater.
Since 2000, he has begun a close affiliation with the highly esteemed conductor
John Yaffé, working as his Orchestral Assistant for the 92nd
Street Y Symphony Orchestra in Manhattan. In the autumn of 2002 Peter worked on
the opera music of Arif Mardin, winner of a Grammy Award in 2002 for his production
of Nora Jones' hit song "Come Away With Me," and a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006. In 2003 he was enagaged
by the Dance Theater of Harlem to engrave a portion of the mammoth orchestral
score St. Louis Woman, a ballet based on the 1946 opera of the same
name by Harold Arlen (with new arrangemnts and music by Joesph Fields). This
was performed at the famed State Theater as part of the renown Lincoln Center Summer Festival.
During the Summer of 2005 he finalized his design and editing work on The Gamut of Scales & Chords, an instructional book/DVD for piano students, co-authored with Cheryl Fried. In early Spring of 2006 he worked extensively on the re-orchestrations of the the 21st century opera Il Racconto Fiorentino by Louis Gioia.
Most recently he's begun editing and proofreading the music of such accomplished contemporaries as André Previn, Bright Sheng, Christopher Rouse, Robert Kapilow and Mark Adamo for worldwide publishers G.Schirmer, Boosey & Hawkes, and Hal Leonard. In January of 2008, working for Emmy Award winning song-writer Jimmy Webb, he transcribed/co-arranged the strings and for two original songs by Carly Simon that were to be featured on her latest album This Kind Of Love. During Spring and Summer of 2009 Peter orchestrated and co-composed (with Tom Swafford) 8 songs for the original musical Anthropomorphic with the Puppetry Arts Theater of Brooklyn, which was performed in December of that year. In Fall of 2010, he composed original music for the feature film Killer Hoo-Ha, which will be relased in theaters this coming Spring 2011. Most recently Mr. Gross has been commissioned to orchestrate two Mahler lieder - 'Ablösung im Sommer' and 'Nicht widersehen!' - for The New York Symphonic Arts Ensemble, to be premiered in New York City May 2011. All the while Peter continues to work on his own original compositions and
arrangements.
Currently, he lives nestled on the North Shore of Long Island
in the beach hamlet of Bayville.
This page is dedicated to the memory of his beloved
Labrador Retrievers, Sheba & Hosehead.
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