Peter Gregson is a British cellist and composer from Edinburgh, born in 1987. His work spans contemporary classical, modern classical, avant-garde and electronic music, and he is closely associated with extended techniques, electric cello and collaborative projects across live performance, recordings and soundtracks.

Releases and recording work

Gregson’s debut album is Terminal, which he records after being commissioned by Bowers & Wilkins and Real World in 2009 to produce an album of contemporary cello music. He follows it with Cello Multitracks, a release of compositions by Gabriel Prokofiev that appears in 2012 on Prokofiev’s Nonclassical label. His second studio album, Lights in the Sky, is written for cello, piano and analogue synthesisers and appears in connection with Imogen Heap’s Reverb Festival in 2014. He also releases Peter Gregson: Touch through Sono Luminus in 2015.

Gregson is featured as soloist on Michael Price’s debut album for Erased Tapes, Entanglement. He also contributes a remix to a Nonclassical release by Consortium5 and works with producer Guy Sigsworth on an album created at the end of his residency at The Hospital Club.

Film, television and sound design

His first feature film soundtrack is A Little Chaos, directed by Alan Rickman. He remains active in film and television soundtrack work. Spitfire Audio develops a sample library based on his extended techniques and on sounds from his blue five-string electric cello, recorded at Pixel, his studio in London.

Collaborations and premieres

Gregson premieres works by Tod Machover, Daníel Bjarnason, Gabriel Prokofiev, Max Richter, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Steve Reich and Sally Beamish. He also collaborates with producer Kidkanevil on a track for Red Bull Music Academy, and works with technologists including Microsoft Labs, United Visual Artists, Reactify and the MIT Media Lab.

Performances and residencies

He performs widely in the UK and the US at venues including the Royal Albert Hall in London, the Ingleby Gallery in Edinburgh, the Twitter offices in San Francisco, Le Poisson Rouge in New York, the Roundhouse, Kings Place, the Queen’s Hall, the 92nd St Y, the Lemon Tree, the Lab Gallery, An Tobar, The Future Gallery, Faster than Sound, Excite! Turin, TED Music, Aldeburgh Music and TEDxAlcatraz in San Francisco. During 2010/11 he is Creative in Residence at The Hospital Club in London, where he curates the year-long alt_classical series.

Instruments, labels and affiliations

Gregson plays a Colin Irving acoustic cello and a custom five-string Eric Jensen electric cello. He is an Apogee Electronics artist and a Made-By ambassador. His work also appears on Nonclassical, Erased Tapes and Sono Luminus.

Recognition

His work is recognised with the 2008 Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award for music, membership of the Courvoisier Future 500 and later inclusion in the Sandbox Network.