Peter Hilliard
Peter Hilliard is the composer of 8 Operas, 4 musicals, and numerous other works with Matthew Boresi, including The Filthy Habit, a finalist in the National Opera Association chamber opera competition, which has received 11 productions. It was the first opera ever presented in the Chicago Fringe Festival and was the subject of an Emmy nominated public television feature in Minnesota.
Other operas include Blue Viola, commissioned by Urban Arias in Washington DC and subsequently produced in Duluth Minnesota and at Opera Memphis, and The Last American Hammer, starring Elizabeth Futral. The Last American Hammer was presented at the Opera America New Works Forum in 2019 and received subsequent productions at Pittsburgh Opera, The University of Illinois, and Opera Grand Rapids. Hilliard and Boresi also revamped their comic reduction of the complete Verdi operas, co-commissioned by a consortium of opera companies from across the country. A virtual production presented by Resonance Works Pittsburgh won a 2022 Opera America award for Digital Excellence in Opera (Education/Enrichment Material) . During the pandemic of 2020, Hilliard and Boresi conceived a consortium of 9 opera companies to commission 9 short operas in the manner of Boccaccio’s Decameron. The resulting project; The Decameron Opera Coalition became one of the most ambitious new opera projects in the history of opera in the US, and a model for virtual opera in a changing world. Peter is also the recipient of the 2020 Hoefer Prize at the San Francisco Conservatory.
Peter has received numerous commissions for Orchestra, Chorus, Concert Band, and Piano, and his work has been performed by the Orchestra of St. Olaf College, The Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia, The San Francisco Girl’s Chorus, The Anna Crusis Women's Chorale, the Philadelphia Gay Men's Chorus, VocalEssence, The Abington Symphony, The Young New Yorker's Chorus, VoxMusica Sacramento, The Ocean City Pops, The Temple University Women's Choir, The Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia, opera luminaries like Luca Pisaroni, Karen Slack, Jennifer Aylmer, Elizabeth Futral and Caroline Worra, and Broadway stars Christiane Noll and Marla Schaffel.
Peter is an active conductor, pianist, and educator in the Philadelphia area. With Glen Clugston, Hilliard built a new performing score and parts for Victor Herbert’s opera Natoma from the original materials housed at the library of congress, allowing Herbert’s most ambitious score to be heard for the first time in a century. He is an Assistant Professor at Villanova University where he directs the music in the graduate theatre department and teaches the core classes in the undergraduate music minor. He conducts a 90 voice community chorus that performs choral masterworks and popular music, and he is the Music Director for the Savoy Company, the oldest Gilbert and Sullivan company in the world. He has conducted Iolanthe and The Pirates of Penzance at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival in Harrogate England.
Peter Hilliard studied with Ellen Southard and Richard Allen Fiske in his teens, and then with English baritone John Shirley Quirk at the Peabody Conservatory. He holds a Bachelor of Music Degree in Composition from the San Francisco Conservatory, where he studied with David Conte and a Master’s Degree in Musical Theatre Writing from New York University, where he studied with Mel Marvin and Phillip Johnston.
Reviews
“Mingling musical forms from contemporary classical and new music to blues and jazz tones, the music by Peter Hilliard was both robust and evocative”
“With its mix of blues, jazz, musical theater, and modern classical music, Blue Viola is a sophisticated melange of sounds and styles of the likes of B.B. King, Stephen Sondheim, and George Gershwin.”
“Urban Arias production of Blue Viola, a new short opera by Peter Hilliard and Matt Boresi fills the Artisphere’s black box with deep, resonant voices, an accessible, compelling narrative, and exquisite music.”
“...soaring, roaring arias, duets, trios, quartets and ensembles, mostly notable for their playful homage to Mozart, Puccini, Bizet, Gilbert and Sullivan, and Sondheim.”
“[Going Down Swingin’] features catchy period tunes that capture the bristling rivalry between swing-style jazz and the period’s burgeoning rock-n-roll sensibilities”
“Hilliard and Boresi allowed me to reach out to an audience that is otherwise difficult to approach, and their operas received high praise - not only from first time opera goers who told me they had never had such a good time at any performance, much less opera, but also from opera professionals impressed by the wit and freshness of their work.”
Photo Credit: Helga Yang