PETER AUTY received his musical training in the Choir of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, which he  joined shortly after his 8th birthday. Before he left, aged 13½, he had become Senior Chorister and sang in many special services. He made a number of recordings with the Cathedral Choir, including the gold-winning LP "Rejoice" which was later released on CD. He was one of the lead singers on the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra's recording of greatest hits of the pop group "Police". This LP was entitled "Arrested" and Peter's contribution, "Walking on the Moon" was later released as a single.
 His best known solo performance, however, was undoubtedly in 1982 when he recorded "Walking in the Air" for Howard Blake's soundtrack to The Snowman, a highly successful animated film directed by Dianne Jackson and based on the book by Raymond Briggs. Peter was invited to sing the role at the Barbican Theatre with Bernard Cribbins and an LP was made as well as a single of Peter's song.
For a while during the early eighties, Peter's voice was a household sound when he sang for a British Rail television commercial: "This is the Age of the Train"!
He was a songman at Bristol Cathedral and York Minster before studying at RSAMD with Peter Alexander Wilson. In 1987 he emerged as an operatic tenor with the National Opera Studio and made his debut with British Youth Opera as Tom Rakewell (Rake's Progress) returning as Rodolfo (La Boheme) in 1998. For Opera North he has sung Remendado (Carmen), Jenik (The Bartered Bride) and Rodolfo (La Boheme). Peter has sung Malcolm (Macbeth) for Opera Zuid and for the Glyndebourne Festival. For Mid Wales Opera and for Opera de Massy he has sung the title role in Gounod's Faust.
For the Royal Opera House he has sung several roles including Fenton (Falstaff), Michelis (The Greek Passion), Nathaniel (Les Contes D'Hoffman), Matteo Borsa (Rigoletto), Malcolm (Macbeth) and he sang the tenor solos in Stravinsky's Les Noches for the Royal Ballet.
In 2002 he went on tour with Glyndebourne Touring Opera singing Don José (Carmen).
DAVID HARRISON was educated at Brentwood School, Essex and the Royal College of Music where he studied organ with Ralph Downes and Harold Darke and the piano with Edwin Benbow. He taught in schools in the south of England and in Scotland where he was also organist of Dumferline Abbey. From 1976 to 1997 he was Head of Music at Papplewick School in Ascot and since retirement has lived near Worcester, assisting as deputy organist at Worcester Cathedral and Malvern Priory as well as playing in his own parish church at St. Edburga's, Leigh. He is also the Editor of the Worcester Three Choirs Festival Programme Book.
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 Download a video of Peter singing from 1983 (5MB).
This video has been compressed using the DivX codec v3. Should you still have problems then install the old v3.11 codec.
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-- UPDATE --
Peter is currently singing as Rodolpho in La Boheme
for the Scottish Opera and has been singing the same role
with the Glyndebourne
Touring opera. He will be performing in Rome in February 2005
where he is soloist in The dream of Gerontius, conducted by
Vladimir Ashkenazy.
Visit OperaBase
for details.
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