One of the foremost interpreters of the music of J.S. Bach and his contemporaries, Peter Harvey has made well over 150 recordings in repertoire spanning eight centuries, with an emphasis on music from the High Baroque. A key participant in their Bach Cantata Pilgrimage, his many recordings with Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir include the two celebrated solo cantatas Ich habe genug and Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen.
Peter performs and records regularly with the J. S. Bachstiftung St. Gallen (Rudolf Lutz), the Orchestra of the 18th Century (Daniel Reuss), and Concerto Copenhagen (Lars Ulrik Mortensen), with whom he also made his debut at the Royal Danish Opera in The Fairy Queen, as well as recordings of Bach’s Hohe Messe and Johannespassion, and Handel’s Brockespassion.
In addition to Tafelmusik itself, other close relationships tie him to the Gaechinger Cantorey and Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart (Hans Christoph Rademann), an association that has produced numerous recordings, and with whom he teaches regularly on the residential ‘Meisterkurs’. With the Budapest Festival Orchestra and its Music Director Iván Fischer, he has made operatic appearances (Die Zauberflöte, L’incoronazione di Poppea, L’Orfeo and Pelléas et Mélisande) at theatres including the Grand Théâtre de Genève.
He has frequently sung with the Gabrieli Consort, King’s Consort, Netherlands Bach Society, Purcell Quartet and London Baroque, as well as appearing with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Akademie für Alte Musik, Academy of Ancient Music, La Chapelle Royale, the Collegium Vocale, and Le Concert Spirituel.
Outside the realm of period instruments, his appearances include with Boston Symphony Orchestra (Bernard Haitink), Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and Oslo Philharmonic (Herbert Blomstedt), Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (Kent Nagano), Konzerthausorchester Berlin and Concertgebouw Orkest (Iván Fischer), Rotterdam Philharmonic (Lahav Shani), and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.
Peter Harvey founded the Magdalena Consort, which recently completed a series of three discs of English consort anthems with the viol consort Fretwork.