Peter Pringle (born September 7, 1945) is a Canadian musician and television personality,"Peter Pringle"
The Canadian Encyclopedia. most prominent in the 1970s and 1980s.

Early career

Pringle began performing at age six in the

children's choir A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which sp ...

of the Canadian Opera Company. He later studied a variety of classical instruments, including

lute A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lute" can ref ...

, sitar and surbahar,.

canoe.ca Canoe.com is an English-language Canadian portal site and website network, and is a subsidiary of Postmedia Network. The phrase Canadian Online Explorer appears in the header; the name is also evidently a play on words on canoe (or ''canoë'' in ...

Pop Music Encyclopedia. financing his studies by writing pop songs. Several of his songs were recorded by Anne Murray, for whom he also performed as a backing vocalist. There have been occasional erroneous claims made in internet forums that Pringle's real name is David Murray, and that he is Anne Murray's brother. While Anne Murray did have a brother named David, he was a surgeon rather than a musician, and he died in 2021.

Recording

Pringle moved to Los Angeles in 1975, and released his self-titled debut album the following year. He then moved to Montreal in 1980, and continued to record pop songs in both English and French. He is a two-time

Juno Award The Juno Awards, more popularly known as the JUNOS, are awards presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements in all aspects of music. New members of the Canadian Music Hall of ...

nominee for Most Promising Male Vocalist, at the Juno Awards of 1978 and the

Juno Awards of 1982 The Juno Awards of 1982, representing Canadian music industry achievements of the previous year, were awarded on 14 April 1982 in Toronto at a ceremony hosted by Burton Cummings at the Harbour Castle Hilton Convention Centre in the Grand Metrop ...

. In 1985, he participated in the recording of "

Les Yeux de la faim "Les Yeux de la faim" (meaning "The Eyes of Hunger") is a French-language song written by Canadian journalist Gil Courtemanche and Canadian composer Jean Robitaille. It was recorded by a one-off supergroup of many musicians to raise funds for the ...

", a French-language charity single for the 1983–85 famine in Ethiopia, alongside musicians such as René Simard, Nathalie Simard, André Gagnon, Yvon Deschamps, Gilles Vigneault,

Nanette Workman Nanette Joan Workman (born 20 November 1945, Brooklyn, New York, United States) is a singer-songwriter, actress and author, who has been based in Quebec, Canada, during much of her career. She holds dual citizenship of both the United States and ...

and

Patsy Gallant Patricia Gallant (born August 15, 1948, in Campbellton, New Brunswick) is a Canadian pop singer and musical theatre actress. Of Acadian ancestry, she has recorded and performed in both English and French. Early life Patsy Gallant was one of ...

, and in 1986 he was one of the performers at Canada's first major benefit concert for HIV/AIDS, alongside

Michel Louvain Michel Louvain, (July 12, 1937April 14, 2021) was a Canadian singer most popular in the 1960s and 1970s.

Joe Bocan Joe Bocan is the stage name of Johanne Beauchamp (born September 8, 1957), a Canadian pop singer and actress from Quebec.Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. In 1986, he garnered a

Genie Award The Genie Awards were given out annually by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to recognize the best of Canadian cinema from 1980–2012. They succeeded the Canadian Film Awards (1949–1978; also known as the "Etrog Awards," for scu ...

nomination for Best Original Song for "Cold As Ice", a song he co wrote with Kevin Hunter, for the soundtrack to the film ''

Toby McTeague ''Toby McTeague'' is a 1986 Canadian children's action-adventure drama film directed by Jean-Claude Lord. It stars Yannick Bisson as Toby McTeague, a teenager training to compete in a dog sled race. The film was shot primarily in the small town o ...

'';"New Genie ballots sent out after 'Cold as Ice' mix-up". '' Vancouver Sun'', February 17, 1987. a minor controversy resulted when the song was mistakenly omitted from the first round of ballots sent out to Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television voters, forcing the Academy to send out replacement ballots. In this era, he was also a regular host of the

Miss Teen Canada Miss Teen Canada was a personality and beauty competition in Canada for women aged 14 to 17. The event started in 1969 and was televised on CTV. The pageant was named Miss Teenage Canada for its first three years and was originally sponsored by A ...

pageant, and hosted television variety specials for TVA. Since 2007 he has gained recognition online for performing ancient epics and poems on his Youtube channel. He uses a wide variety of instruments from the lyre to the hurdy-gurdy and performs many of these poems in their original ancient languages. His recording of the initial verses of the Epic of Gilgamesh has 9.7 million views as of January 2024.

Acting

In 1987, Pringle premiered a one-man theatrical show in which he portrayed

Noël Coward Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time'' magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and ...

, mixing a dramatic monologue with performances of Coward's songs. He toured the show across Canada several times over the next number of years, as well as creating and performing several other musical revue shows, including ''From Irving Berlin to Gilles Vigneault'', a show based on the biblical '' Song of Songs'' and ''New York-Paris, a Musical Voyage''. In 1994, he also appeared as Duncan in a production of Wendy Wasserstein's play '' The Sisters Rosensweig''.

Theremin

Pringle released a compilation album, ''Comme j'étais - comme je suis!'', in 1996, and then retired from recording or performing pop music. By 1998, Pringle began to reemerge as a theremin player. He has released two independent albums of theremin music, has performed on the instrument both in solo shows and with the Montreal Chamber Orchestra, and has released a number of YouTube videos of his performances of both classical and modern pieces on the instrument."Theremin's ethereal instrument; Us Conductors imagines the strange world of the Soviet scientist and spy who invented his eponymous device". '' Montreal Gazette'', April 12, 2014.

Discography

*''Peter Pringle'' (1976) *''Rain Upon The Sea'' (1981) *''Magicien'' (1981) *''Fifth Avenue Blue'' (1982) *''Pour Une Femme'' (1982) *''Souris-Moi'' (1984) *''Fantasies'' (1984) *''Chansons d'amour (1984) *''Pauvre Casanova'' (1985) *''Noel Coward: A Portrait'' (1987) *''Le Jeu d'amour'' (1991) *''Le Secret du Cantique des Cantiques'' (1992) *''Comme j'étais - comme je suis!'' (1996) *''Many Voices'' (2003) *''A Theremin Jewel Box'' *''Dancing Alone'' (2021)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pringle, Peter 1945 births Living people Canadian male singers Canadian pop singers Canadian pop pianists Canadian jazz singers Canadian jazz pianists Canadian male songwriters 20th-century Canadian dramatists and playwrights Canadian male stage actors Canadian male musical theatre actors French-language singers of Canada Musicians from Halifax, Nova Scotia Musicians from Montreal Canadian television variety show hosts Theremin players Canadian male dramatists and playwrights Beauty pageant hosts Canadian YouTubers Writers from Halifax, Nova Scotia Writers from Montreal 20th-century Canadian male writers 21st-century Canadian pianists 21st-century Canadian male musicians Canadian male jazz musicians Canadian male jazz pianists YouTubers from Montreal Singers from Nova Scotia