Peter Davison

Peter Davison was, for over twenty years, Artistic Consultant to The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester UK, where he created a high-quality classical music program, including the hall’s International Concert Series. He studied Musicology at Cambridge University, writing a thesis on the Nachtmusiken from Mahler’s Seventh Symphony which led to an invitation to speak about his research at the 1989 Mahler Symposium in Paris. He also contributed to the Festschrift for Henry-Louis de la Grange’s Seventieth birthday in 1994. In 2001, he edited Reviving the Muse, a book about the future of musical composition and, in 2010, published Wrestling with Angels about the life and work of Gustav Mahler to accompany The Bridgewater Hall’s acclaimed Centenary Symphony Cycle. In the UK, he is currently artistic adviser to the George Lloyd Society and writes articles on classical music for the Corymbus blogsite and the Catholic Herald. In the USA, he has broadcast a series of extended conversations about music on Ave Maria Radio in South Michigan, and he also regularly contributes to Wunderhorn Magazine, the official publication of the Gustav Mahler Society of New York.

Posts by Davison on the MahlerFest Blog:

• MAHLER’S NINTH SYMPHONY: PERSONAL VALEDICTION OR FAUSTIAN TRANSFORMATION?
• FREEDOM AND BELONGING: THE INTERTWINING LIVES OF GUSTAV MAHLER AND ALFONS MUCHA
• MAHLER AND BEETHOVEN – KENNETH WOODS AND PETER DAVISON
• KURT SCHWERTSIK AND THE CONCEPT OF MODERNITY IN TRANSITION
• “VIENNA: CITY OF DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES”: PETER DAVISON ON SCHÖNBERG’S CHAMBER VERSIONS OF JOHANN STRAUSS JR. AND GUSTAV MAHLER
• MAHLER SEEKS THE EARTH’S EMBRACE
• “COME! RAISE YOURSELF TO THE HIGHEST SPHERES” MAHLER’S SYMPHONY NO. 8 IN E-FLAT
• THE SORROWS OF YOUNG GUSTAV: MAHLER’S SONGS OF A WAYFARER