Peter Sykes

Biography

Peter Sykes, “a formidable organist who plays with artistry, subtlety, and insight,” is one of the most distinguished and versatile keyboard artists performing today. His live performances have been called “compelling and moving,” “magnificent and revelatory,” and “bold, imaginative, and amazingly accurate” – his ten CDs of music for organ, harpsichord and clavichord ranging from Buxtehude to Couperin, Bach (complete Leipzig Chorales and harpsichord Partitas), Reger, and Hindemith to his groundbreaking transcription for organ of Holst’s The Planets, have been called “satisfying and persuasive,” “hauntingly beautiful,” and “simply stunning.”

Sykes is a core faculty member and principal instructor of harpsichord in the Historical Performance Department of The Juilliard School in New York City, and an adjunct professor at Boston University, teaching harpsichord and organ performance. For 37 years he was a member of Boston Baroque, with whom he participated in all of their recordings, concerts, and tours; he also appears on recordings made by the Boston Early Music Festival (Lully’s Thesée and Psyché) and Aston Magna (Handel’s The Triumph of Time and Truth, Bach’s Art of Fugue and Musical Offering, Monteverdi’s Orfeo).

He is Music Director Emeritus at First Church in Cambridge, which he served for 40 years, 1986-2026. He holds degrees from the New England Conservatory and Concordia University in Montreal and has taught at the University of Michigan (2022-24), New England Conservatory (1996-2003), and the Longy School of Music (1984-2013). He often performs and teaches in Europe and has been a judge in numerous harpsichord and organ playing competitions.

A founding board member and current president of the Boston Clavichord Society, a member of the board of the Cambridge Society for Early Music and Early Music America, as well as past president of the Westfield Center for Historical Keyboard Studies, he is the recipient of the Chadwick Medal and Outstanding Alumni Award from the New England Conservatory, the Erwin Bodky Prize, and the Distinguished Artist Award from the St. Botolph Club Foundation, a major gift awarded annually to an artist who has demonstrated outstanding talent and an exceptional diversity of accomplishment. Previous recipients include painter Edward Hopper, poets Elizabeth Bishop and Stanley Kunitz, sculptor Alexander Calder, and writers George V. Higgins, Annie Dillard, and Sissela Bok; the award letter characterized him as “one of the major musical intellects and imaginations of our time.”

SPECIALTIES:

Organ
Harpsichord
Clavichord
Organology, history
Figured bass realization
Elementary partimento
Historical improvisation
Renaissance and baroque keyboard music and chamber music (French, German, Italian, English,
Iberian

LANGUAGES:

English