Peter Jacobs (born 17 August 1945) is an English pianist. Jacobs was born in London and studied at the

Royal Academy of Music The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is the oldest conservatoire in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the first Duke of ...

in London with Alexander Kelly (piano) and

Eric Fenby Eric William Fenby Order of the British Empire, OBE (22 April 190618 February 1997) was an English composer, conductor, pianist, organist and teacher who is best known for being Frederick Delius's amanuensis from 1928 to 1934. He helped Delius ...

(harmony). For a while he was Director of Music at

Taunton School Taunton School is a co-educational independent school in the county town of Taunton in Somerset in South West England. It serves boarding and day-school pupils from the ages of 13 to 18. The current headmaster is Lee Glaser, appointed in the aut ...

, but returned to London to begin his career as a concert pianist, examiner and adjudicator. His initial public performances were in chamber groups, and as part of a pianist duo with Elizabeth Lightoller before making his solo debut at the

Wigmore Hall Wigmore Hall is a concert hall located at 36 Wigmore Street, London. Originally called Bechstein Hall, it specialises in performances of chamber music, early music, vocal music and song recitals. It is widely regarded as one of the world's leadin ...

on 9 May 1975 with a programme of little-known 20th century composers. He has continued to concentrate on out-of-the-way (particularly English and French) repertoire of the late 19th and 20th centuries throughout his subsequent career, playing works by such figures as Henry Balfour Gardiner,

Alan Bush Alan Dudley Bush (22 December 1900 – 31 October 1995) was a British composer, pianist, conductor, teacher and political activist. A committed communist, his uncompromising political beliefs were often reflected in his music. He composed pro ...

Benjamin Dale Benjamin James Dale (17 July 188530 July 1943) was an English composer and academic who had a long association with the Royal Academy of Music. Dale showed compositional talent from an early age and went on to write a small but notable corpus of ...

John Foulds John Herbert Foulds (; 2 November 188025 April 1939) was an English cellist and composer of classical music. He was largely self-taught as a composer, and belongs among the figures of the English Musical Renaissance. A successful composer of li ...

Trevor Hold Trevor Hold (21 September 1939 – 28 January 2004) was an English composer, poet and author, best known for his song cycles, many of them setting his own poetry. Biography Born in Northampton, Hold suffered an attack of polio at the age of seven, ...

Billy Mayerl William Joseph Mayerl (31 May 1902 – 25 March 1959) was an English pianist and composer who built a career in music hall and musical theatre and became an acknowledged master of light music. Best known for his syncopated novelty piano solos, ...

Betty Roe Betty Roe (born 30 July 1930) is an English composer, singer, vocal coach, and conductor. Biography Betty Roe was born in North Kensington, London, England. Her father was a fishmonger at the Shepherd's Bush Market, and her mother was a bookkee ...

Harold Truscott Harold Truscott (23 August 1914 – 7 October 1992) was a British composer, pianist, broadcaster and writer on music. Largely neglected as a composer in his lifetime, he made an important contribution to the British piano repertoire and was influ ...

and

Percy Turnbull Percy Turnbull (14 July 1902 – 9 December 1976) was an English composer and pianist best known for his piano character pieces and songs. Life Percy Purvis Turnbull trained as a chorister at the Cathedral Church of St Nicholas in Newcastle and ...

. He also performed the sometimes neglected piano works of more mainstream figures such as

Frank Bridge Frank Bridge (26 February 187910 January 1941) was an English composer, violist and conductor. Life Bridge was born in Brighton, the ninth child of William Henry Bridge (1845-1928), a violin teacher and variety theatre conductor, formerly a m ...

and

Vaughan Williams Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over ...

. One of his first recordings in 1987 was ''The Lake in the Mountains'', including the complete piano music of Vaughan Williams. In the early 1990s Jacobs began recording for the then new Hyperion label, beginning with the complete solo piano music of

Cécile Chaminade Cécile Louise Stéphanie Chaminade (8 August 1857 – 13 April 1944) was a French composer and pianist. In 1913, she was awarded the Légion d'Honneur, a first for a female composer. Ambroise Thomas said, "This is not a woman who composes, but a ...

. In 1998 he released a recording of

Charles Villiers Stanford Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (30 September 1852 – 29 March 1924) was an Anglo-Irish composer, music teacher, and conductor of the late Romantic music, Romantic era. Born to a well-off and highly musical family in Dublin, Stanford was ed ...

's neglected 24 Preludes, op. 179 on Olympia. Although many of his recordings have become unavailable over the years, in 2020 Heritage Records released two box sets of reissues under the ''British Piano Collection'' banner. His recordings of ten of Harold Truscott's Piano Sonatas was reissued in 2021. Jacobs returned to the studio in 2020 to record additional works by Trevor Hold, and again in 2021 to perform a sequence of British piano music from his repertoire hitherto unrecorded. Jacobs is an

Associated Board The ABRSM (Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music) is an examination board and Charitable organization, registered charity based in the United Kingdom. ABRSM is one of five examination boards accredited by Ofqual to award graded exams ...

examiner. He has compiled three volumes of British music for Thames Publishing. He has also served as head of keyboard at

Latymer Upper School (Slowly Therefore Surely) , established = , closed = , sister_school = Godolphin and Latymer School , type = Public schoolIndependent day school , head_label = H ...

in Hammersmith, taking courses in the music of Schubert, Chopin and Mendelssohn.Biography, Divine Arts Records
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jacobs, Peter 1945 births Living people English classical pianists British classical pianists Male classical pianists Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music Piano pedagogues 20th-century British male musicians