Peter Joyce is an Irish musician, conductor and composer whose musical identity has been strongly developed by his early experiences with jazz, music theory, his vigorous training in Viennese Classicism and Modernism and his ongoing passion for contemporary music and experimental as well as traditional musical theatre. His artistic identity is as much influenced by the landscapes and great modernist literature of his native country as it is by the psychoanalytic and musical innovations of his adopted home Vienna.
Following his first important musical experiences at a young age playing the saxophone with the Black Magic Big Band, Peter began to study clarinet and saxophone with Ciaran Wilde, and later clarinet with Fintan Sutton at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. He is a music graduate of Trinity College Dublin where he began composing, arranging and conducting, later studying conducting with Dr. Geoffrey Spratt at the CIT Cork School of Music. Peter continued his musical education by studying conducting with Mark Stringer, and composition with Detlev Müller-Siemens at the renowned University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and has capped it off in masterclasses with Salvatore Sciarrino and Marin Alsop among many others.
Following an already successful career as a freelance performer throughout Europe, he has since committed himself to composition and conducting, but not before gaining vast performing experience with groups and artists such as the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, RTÉ Concert Orchestra, the Ulster Orchestra, the Dublin City Jazz Orchestra, The National Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Orchestra of the Baden State Theater, Divertimento Viennese, the Webern Kammerphilharmonie, Placido Domingo, Andrea Bocelli, Buddy Greco, Imelda May, Liam Ó Maonlaí, Sinead O'Connor, Hozier, Nathan Carter and Booka Brass Band among many others.
As a conductor and assistant Peter has worked in musical theatre, opera, choral and symphonic settings. These include the Pro-Arte Orchestra Vienna, Orchestra of the Technical University Vienna , the Akademische Philarmonie Wien, the Webern Ensemble, as assistant and rehearsal conductor for productions of Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea and Mozart's Cosi fan Tutte at the Music Academy International 2016 Summer Festival in Trentino Italy, as conductor and producer for a recent Irish production of 'The Soldier's Tale' by Igor Stravinsky and with the ORF as a musical assistant for live broadcasts from the Vienna State Opera.
A champion of new music, Peter has performed and conducted premiers of many new works by Irish and international composers. As a composer Peter's works have been performed and workshoped throughout Europe by groups such as the Arditti Quartet, Quartetto Prometeo, the Kandinsky Quartet, the Webern Ensemble and the Platypus Ensemble Vienna. In 2020 he was the winner of the Feis Ceoil IMRO Composition Award.
Peter is the founder and conductor of the Esker Festival Orchestra, Ireland's longest established, and one of Europe's most exciting orchestras for emerging young professional musicians.