Greetings and welcome to my web! I would like to put you up-to-date with my activities as composer, flutist, and as artistic director of Grup21. This season has been very active in many areas and here I give you a brief over-view:

Composer:

The spring premiere of my recent Missa Brevis, written for the top-notch childrens' choir Cor Vivaldi of Barcelona, was a success both with the audience and the critics, as were the other concerts of the piece throughout Spain and France. It was a great honor for me to be premiering my mass along side those of three excellent Barcelona composers: Salvador Brotons, Albert Guinovart and Jordi Rigol. La Vanguardia said of my Missa Brevis: " The masses of Peter Bacchus and Albert Guinovart were enthusiastically applauded. Bacchus mixes organ and chorus, with the exception of an attractive choral a cappella, with solo sections and even a short section of audience participation at the end [Dona nobis pacem]."

Other composition projects that have come to fruition this year are the recording of my Octet for Flutes and Serenade by Uptown Flutes of New Jersey. The cd is soon to be released and we are looking forward to the possibility of performing these pieces at the National Flute Association annual convention this year in New York. Also, the premiere of my new Variations for Cobla by the Cobla Sant Jordi occurred on November 16th. The cobla is a traditional Catalonian band of about a dozen musicians. One of the predominant colors in the ensemble are the double-reed instruments called the tible and the tenora, which are shawm-like instruments each with the range of the oboe and the english horn, respectively. The cobla is Catalunya's contribution to "world-music". You will not hear this ensemble anywhere but in Catalunya, and perhaps in Amsterdamand some other city of the world. The great honor for me was to be commissioned to write for this unique ensemble, and to be able to work with one of the best coblas there are today, the Cobla Sant Jordi. I conducted the premiere at the chamber hall of the Auditori of Barcelona. I believe I am the first non-Catalan to recieve what is considered to be a prestigious commission here. Currently, I am starting to work on another work for flutes, this one for contras-bass flute and flute ensemble, which is being commissioned by flutist Mary Berk of Pennsylvania.

Flutist:

I was very pleased to perform in New York with Anthony Newman this year in a program that included the J.S. Bach Sonata in e-minor, a Vivaldi harpsichord concerto, and most importantly, the American premiere of Newman's Chamber Concerto, which he wrote in 2006 for Grup21. I am also looking forward to performing at the NFA convention in New York along with my other wonderful colleagues on the NFA New Music Advisory Committee. Each of us will perform one of the many works that the NFA has been commissioning for the various competitions over recent years. This kind of concert has never been done before, to have members of the New Music Advisory perform new music together at a convention. We are all excited about working together on this stimulating concert!

Announcing the Creation of the Phonos Trio!

On November 24th , the newly formed Phonos Trio performed at the Sala Mompou of SGAE in Barcelona, a significant event on the Barcelona and Spanish contemporary music scene. I feel privileged and honored to be part of this new trio with two important personalities in contemporary music today: the great Dutch bass-clarinetist Harry Sparnaay (http://www.harrysparnaay.info/) and the reknowned French pianist, Jean-Pierre Dupuy (http://www.musicastudio.net/en/JPDupuy/index.htm). Both Harry and Jean-Pierre have worked with and premiered music by many of the most noted composers of the last 35 years. They are recognized figures at the forefront of new music and I am excited about our work together. We are already looking forward to more concerts and a recording in the next year, we'll keep you posted about news of the Phonos Trio!

Grup21:

The concert season of Grup21 (now Grup21, we changed the name from Grup XXI) is in full swing now and we have been quite busy. We are pleased to announce that we have a new web which will be in four languages: http://www.grup21music.com/. We are still in the stages of translating it from Catalan to English, Spanish and French. Please check back to give the site a visit. it gives a very up-to-date vision of the group, it's history, and it's current activities.

Grup21 keeps forging new paths on the Barcelona concert scene. This past June we initiated a innovative new educative concert series at the public library Biblioteca Jaume Fuster called "Music: the essence of inter-cultural dialogue". On October 8th we did our 3rd annual concert in conjunction with the electronic music center Fundació Phonos. In that concert we gave the Spanish premieres of pieces for electronic music with acoustic instruments by the well-known Portuguese composer Joao Pedro Oliveira, and by Russell Pinkston, head of the electronic music studio at the University of Texa in Austin. We premiered two pieces by Pinkston, one of which is a computer interactive piece using the program, Lizamander for flute and MAX/MSP. Our second concert took place on October 30th and we were very happy to celebrate the 75th birthday of the great Catalan musician Narcís Bonet. We performed one of his most noted works from the year 1967, La Pell de Brau (The Skin of the Bull) with recited poetry by the great catalan poet, Salvador Espriu. This important classic of contemporary Catalonian repertory had not been done in it's original chamber version in many years and we were honored to have Narcís Bonet in attendance.

A few days laters we performed at the famous Barcelona apartment building by Antonio Gaudí, La Pedrera, which is the home of the Fundació Caixa de Catalunya. This concert was dedicated to the music of Narcís Bonet as part of the foundation's "Celebracions" series. I was master of ceremonies for the event in which I gave a talk on Bonet's career and his contributions, along with Salvador Brotons and Narcís Bonet himself. It was a great honor for me and for Grup21 to participate in this celebration in collaboration with the Fundació Caixa de Catalunya.

For the 3rd and 4th programs of the Grup21 season, we are looking forward to January 16th when we perform for the 1st time at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, or CCCB. We are pleased they are opening their doors to us and we have another ground-breaking program for this concert. We will premiere the 4th chamber concerto written for Grup21, Piccolo Concerto by the noted Catalonian composer Agustí Charles. This piece is already published, along with the other chamber concertos written for us by Dinsic Publicacions, as part of the Grup21 Collection. It is exciting to see this collection grow and be able to make these pieces available to the wider contemporary music world.

We will also perfrom Music of Amber by the great American composer Joseph Schwantner. Schwantner's music is relatively unknown in Spain, and we feel privileged to introduce him to the Barcelona public. The noted young German choreographer-dancer Julia Koch has concieved of a choreography for Music of Amber which she will premiere in this concert. She and her young company are able to do this thanks to the collaboration of the Fundació Ribermúsica.

The final winter concert of Grup21 will be January 29th at the Conservatori Municipal de Música de Barcelona (CMMB), and the Grup 21 Piano Trio will perform.

The programa will consist of trios by Aaron Copland, Lluís Gasser, Francesc Taverna Bech and Thierry Escaich. This is the 4th season we perform at the CMMB, and this year the conservatory has opened it's doors even more to us by including this concert as part of their successful Thursday night concerts, and by inviting Grup21 to do a rehearsal-performance for the students of the center.

As it is for everyone in our business these days, the economic crisis makes things harder for the already diffcult task of bringing contemporary music to the wider public, and for being able to collaborate on an international level, but we all possess the strong desire and conviction to continue working and make ourselves indispensible to the music world and to the growth of audiences both young and old.

Note: If you are a composer planning a year sabbatical or looking for the right ensemble to premiere a new work, please contact Grup21 and talk to us about your project. We have brought to term several successful collaborations with international composers, in some cases all the way from premiere and radio recording to the published edition of the piece with Dinsic Publicacions. Check out the "Collaborations" menu at the Grup21 site: www.grup21music.com.

Just bear with us a bit as we put the web into English!

Outstanding Concerts in 2008:

March 29 and 30 – Premiere of his Missa Brevis for childrens choir and organ, commissioned by the Cor Vivaldi

March 29 – the Cathedral of Tarrgona

March 30 – the Winterthur Hall in Barcelon

April 9 and 10 – Peter performs on the innovative concert series “30 minutes of Music”, created by the Fundació Mas i Mas, six 30 minute concerts two days in a row at 19h, 20h, and 21h.

Movements of sonates by Prokofiev, Bach and Newman, accompanied on the piano by Carme Poch.

April 23 – Concert in Bedford New York with Anthony Newman and instrumental ensemble: works of Bach, Vivaldi and Newman.

April 24 – Masterclasses at the North Carolina School of the Arts

May 18 – Concert in Barcelona for the Fundació Ribermúsica flute, DJ and actress!
A concert on Picasso

June 7, 14 and 21 – Grup XXI concert series at the Barcelona Public Libraries, the new library Josep Fuster at Plaça Lesseps.

Concert # 1, on June 7th, Inter-cultural Dialogue through new technologies in a program of electro-acoustic music for flute and tape or flute and computer performed by Peter Bacchus.

Concert # 2, on June 14th, Inter-cultural dialogue through the percussion family, performed by percussionist Pilar Subirà assisted by other members of Grup XXI.

Concert # 3, the final and culminating program on June 21, Dia de la Música entitled: Inter-cultural dialogue between peoples in conflict and will juxtapose chamber music by Aaron Copland and Dimitri Shostakovich. Noted Catalonian composer and scholar, Carles Guinovart, will be guiding this program along with his commentaries as we contrast movements from piano trios and sonatas of these two greats of the 20th century.

Season 08-09 - Grup XXI is looking to expand its horizons even more.
Distinguished award winning Catalonian composer Agustí Charles will be composing the fourth chamber concerto for the group and a young Catalonian composer will be writing a new piece for our cobla instruments concert. All the new works which are written for us are receiving support from the province government, the Generalitat of Catalonia. Also, as we do each year, there will be a concert of recent works by composers from all over the world for the Pierrot Ensemble + percussion. Please go to www.grup21music.com for up to date details.

We also have a grant from the Program for Cultural Cooperation between United States Universities and the Spanish Ministry of Culture to record Flautando by Jorge Liderman.

This concert series is generously supported by a grant from the Generalitat of Catalunya