About

Published by many leading UK publishing houses
Music Educator
Choral Director & Orchestral Conductor
Singer & Vocal Coach
Intuitive Accompanist
Workshop leader
Composes and arranges day and night!

“A passion for creativity and quality”

“A sense of fun and inspiration”

Biography

Peter Gritton is a composer, performer and educator. He writes music to private and public commission, as well as for an array of internationally known publishers. He sings professionally as a countertenor, most recently with Tenebrae and I Fagiolini and directs Celestia Music in the provision of music for weddings, funerals and thanksgivings. After leading the music departments of St Paul’s School and James Allen’s Girls’ School (JAGS), he is in now demand as adjudicator and workshop leader, supporting music at grass-root level in schools. Peter uses his creative gifts to light up young people’s imagination and enthusiasm for music and is bringing schools together for music projects, most notably in the Community Music Centre at JAGS in South London. The diversity of Peter’s workshops is astounding – ranging from choral days with adult choral societies on works such as Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis and Handel’s Messiah through to instrumental initiatives promoting orchestral instruments in schools using his own pieces The Birthday Party (percussion) and String City (orchestral strings) – both works illustrated imaginatively by Frankie Gritton.

His thoughts on how Thomas Tallis planned and wrote the magnificent 40-part motet Spem in alium are becoming well known, particularly after a son-et-lumiere performance in the Royal Albert Hall by NYCGB (April 2023), in their 40th anniversary concert, which illuminated his theories. He has created his own user-friendly edition of Spem in alium which uncovers Tallis’s precise attention to proportion. The most recent Spem performance using the Gritton Edition was given in June 2024 by the world-famous choir Tenebrae in Ely Cathedral.

His music is published by Stainer & Bell, Chester Music (Music Sales), Oxford University Press (OUP), Faber Music, Hal Leonard, BBC Learning and Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM). Peter’s music is available through the Catalogue & Shop page of this website.

Background

Peter was born in 1963 into a family for which music was an everyday norm. At one time there were six pianos in the family home, including a Broadwood pianola with countless piano rolls to choose from, an organ piano (a piano with organ pedals) and a Steinway grand that his grandfather had bought in Hamburg in the 1930s! From the age of 8, Peter received his first formal musical education as a chorister at Salisbury Cathedral under the guidance of Richard Seal. At Salisbury, Peter featured most notably as treble soloist on a vinyl LP recording of Mathias’s An Admonition to Rulers. While he was still a chorister, two of his compositions were performed in the Cathedral. He continued his education at Reigate Grammar School as an academic and music scholar. This was the first music scholarship granted by RGS on its transformation into an independent school in 1977. During his school years, he went on to become principal French Horn of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. Peter gained an Academic Exhibition to read Music at Clare College, Cambridge, where he also sang in the chapel choir as a Choral Scholar. He ran the University Music Club in his final year, after which he became a countertenor Lay Clerk at Christ Church, Oxford. Based in London since 1987, he quickly found himself singing in a number of vocal ensembles, including The Sixteen, Cambridge Singers, I Fagiolini, as well as close harmony group The Light Blues with whom he toured worldwide. He is a professional accompanist and has performed with Ian Partridge, Susan Gritton, Nicholas Clapton and Henry Herford. In 1993, alongside his lively freelance career, he joined the music staff at St Paul’s School in London, going on to lead the music department in 2008. He moved to James Allen’s Girls’ School (JAGS) in 2012 where he was Director of Music for eleven years. Whilst at JAGS, he founded and led the SSLP Music Hub (Southwark Schools Learning Partnership) and also directed the adult musicians of the Choral Society and Community Orchestra. He now leads a successful portfolio career as composer, arranger, performer and educator.