Peter Bowman

Peter Bowman

Biography

At age twenty, Mr. Bowman won the principal oboe position of Montréal Symphony Orchestra, where he played for six seasons. He taught at McGill University, and performed with McGill Chamber Orchestra and the Canadian Broadcasting Orchestra. Mr. Bowman joined the Saint Louis Symphony as Principal Oboist in September of 1977, and has appeared numerous times as a soloist in the Saint Louis Symphony orchestral and chamber music subscription series. In 1971 Mr. Bowman received the Albert Spaulding Award as the most outstanding instrumentalist at the Berkshire Music Festival at Tanglewood, Massachusetts. That same year, he was invited by Leonard Bernstein to perform in the world premiere of the composer’s theater piece Mass at the opening of the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and to perform as soloist in the United States premiere of Bruno Maderna’s Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra at the Berkshire Music Festival. Mr. Bowman also performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Opera Company, Boston Ballet Company and Boston Pops. Mr. Bowman has performed as soloist and led master classes throughout the United States, Canada and Japan. He served as principal teacher, guest lecturer and recording artist at the Banff Center of Fine Arts (Canada) from 1981-1995, during which time he co-founded the Festival Wind Soloists. For seven seasons, Mr. Bowman participated in the Affinis Music Festival in Tokyo and Iida City in Japan, coaching the finest young professional Japanese musicians and performing as guest principal oboist with the New Japan Philharmonic. Other engagements include performances as guest oboist of the Boston Chamber Music Society, the Chicago Symphony Chamber Players and the Chicago Chamber Music Society. In 2002, Mr. Bowman performed and toured as guest principal oboist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic on a tour of European music festivals. Joan Tower’s Island Prelude for Strings and Oboe was written for Peter Bowman. He performed the premiere performance and subsequently recorded it with the Saint Louis Symphony. His chamber and orchestral recordings can be heard on labels such as RCA, Sony Classics, BMG, Telarc, EMI, Reprise, Summit Records, DG, New World Records and many others.