Peter Neville
Peter Neville is one of Australia's most accomplished percussion players. He has a particular interest in twentieth-century music and has worked extensively with ensembles including Elision, the David Chesworth Ensemble, the Southbank Ensemble, Jouissance, the Chronochromie Duo and Nadoya.
Peter Neville is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, where in 2000 he was appointed Head of Percussion. Before that appointment he worked as a freelancer across a wide range of musical styles.
As a member of the Australian Youth Orchestra he toured Europe in 1984, performing at the Royal Albert Hall and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. He spent fifteen years as a part-time percussionist with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, including its 1988 tour of Japan and its Australian tour with Elton John. With the MSO he took part in the Australian premieres of Olivier Messiaen's Turangalîla Symphony, in the presence of the composer, and Krzysztof Penderecki's Te Deum, conducted by the composer, and in the orchestra's all-Takemitsu programme at Suntory Hall, Tokyo, again in the composer's presence. He has also worked with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, and the Philharmonia Orchestra of London in their Melbourne performance of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 under Vladimir Ashkenazy.
His theatre credits include musicals such as West Side Story, Cats, Hello, Dolly!, The Secret Garden and three Australian tours of the Broadway The Pirates of Penzance. He toured Australia as musical director of Tap Dogs, and other stage work includes Playbox Theatre's Australia/China tour of Cho-Cho-San and Richard the Third with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
As percussionist of the Elision Ensemble he premiered Chris Dench's Driftglass and Liza Lim's operas The Oresteia and Yu-Ling Jie. Other contemporary opera premieres include Brian Howard's Metamorphosi with the Victorian State Opera, Andrew Ford's Poe and Michael Whitiker's The Bamboo Flute with the Australian Opera, and Mark-Anthony Turnage's Greek with ChamberMade Opera.
He has supported the Bolshoi Ballet, the Russian State Ballet, the Nureyev Farewell Tour and the Netherlands Dance Theatre. With HumanVeins Dance Theatre he took part in Australian premieres of Yannis Xenakis's Oresteia, and was guest drummer with the Balanescu Quartet for three Australian seasons of Possessed with the Meryl Tankard Australian Dance Theatre.
His recordings range from Elision to pop albums by Peter Andre and Deborah Conway and Paul Schütze's experimental industrial album New Maps of Hell. Besides Elision he has been a member of Jouissance, Nadoya, the David Chesworth Ensemble, the Southbank Ensemble, the duo Chronochromie and The Zappa Instrumentaale, among others, recording and touring with several of these groups to Norway, Estonia and the USA.
He has also developed a profile as a composer, writing for percussion quartet, voice, percussion and saxophone quartet, for the Southbank Ensemble, and for companies such as Handspan Theatre and Skylark/Playbox.
Peter Neville is featured on the following titles
Catalogue des Errances Bibliques
Michael Kieran Harvey’s epic Catalogue des Errances Bibliques deploys eight keyboardists and four percussionists with spoken narration by Arjun von Caemmerer: twenty-five musical pieces alternating with twenty-five short narratives.
Performing as Jenny Game Ensemble
The Jenny Game Ensemble provides an opportunity for musicians from a variety of backgrounds to collaborate. In addition to jazz, the musicians involved work in classical, improvised, folk, popular and experimental musical styles.
Jacinta's Song
ARIA-winning pianist Andrea Keller, guitarist Steve Magnusson and percussionist Peter Neville join multi-saxophonist and composer Jenny Game-Lopata on Jacinta's Song, a set of original works for the Jenny Game Ensemble.
Peter Neville also appears on
PRTZL
This release of original compositions by Harvey centres on the monumental Piano Sonata No. 4, a homage to the anti-fascist Antonio Gramsci. That theme runs through solo and ensemble works whose moods range from nostalgically whimsical to furiously satirical.
Spirit Wind
Flautist Derek Jones presents seven free-flowing improvisations inspired by a universal spirit shared across musical cultures, layering flute lines over synthesiser soundscapes, drones and deep gamelan-like bells.
Below: Music for Low Flutes
This charming and rare recording features predominantly commissioned chamber music for low flutes, written to showcase their lyrical and colourful tonal qualities and to expand a small yet growing repertoire.
Curiosities: Chamber Music by Eve Duncan
Chamber music by Australian composer Eve Duncan, performed by artists from Australia and abroad, among them the Australian National Academy of Music String Ensemble and pianist Michael Kieran Harvey.
Japanese Story (Original Soundtrack)
Elizabeth Drake's award-winning score for the Australian feature Japanese Story, starring Toni Collette, layers Japanese instruments and Okinawan folksong with western orchestra. Two bonus cues and a 16-page booklet complete the release.
Scent of Time
Six Australian composers take Asian instruments and voices beyond their own traditions. From dan tranh and sheng to shakuhachi and erhu, the programme is cross-cultural concert music at its most exploratory.
Ambient Voice
Ambient Voice places Dean Frenkel’s haunting harmonic vocals over and within works by outstanding Australian composers, among them Mark Clement Pollard, George Dreyfus, Andrew MacGregor and Invention in Time.
A Handful of Rain
Inspired by Javanese gamelan and Japanese Shinto music, Mark Clement Pollard's ambient concert works pursue beauty and simplicity. A Handful of Rain gathers this acclaimed Australian composer's popular style from the mid-1990s.
Exposé
This album spans nearly a quarter of a century of Peter Tahourdin’s chamber music, from 1971 to 1995. The works chart his compositional metamorphosis and draw on a wide range of influences and themes, from the structural procedures of Indian raga to texts from the Carmina Burana.
WindSong
Eric Klay brings his bass trombone centre-stage in a varied selection of stylish classic, contemporary, and big band pieces.
Peter Neville is a member of
Southern Cross Philharmonia
Southern Cross Philharmonia was a fully professional orchestra established in Melbourne in 2005 as a not-for-profit organisation. It championed past and present Australian music within a framework of international repertoire, and was directed by the late Gerald Gentry.
Jenny Game Ensemble
The Jenny Game Ensemble provides an opportunity for musicians from a variety of backgrounds to collaborate. In addition to jazz, the musicians involved work in classical, improvised, folk, popular and experimental musical styles.