Peter Lewis has made his presence strongly felt in the international music world by producing a constant stream of highly original compositions for many distinguished orchestras, chamber ensembles, 
and soloists. His music has been commissioned and/or performed by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Orion, Alexander, and Ciompi String Quartets, the Raphael, Robert Schumann, and Bakken Trios, the Dorian Wind Quintet, City Winds, members of the Rotterdam Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Symphony of Princeton, Seattle's Intiman Theater, and many distinguished soloists and conductors including Kent Nagano, Robert Hughes, Alan Gilbert, Kees Hülsmann, Stephanie Friedman, and David Tanenbaum. His music has been performed throughout North America, Europe, and Japan, and has been broadcasted over National Public Radio in the United States, the BBC in England, World Broadcasts, and various other stations and programs throughout the world.
His major compositions include Pacific Triptych (for orchestra), two violin concertos, Waves of Grain (Guitar Concerto), Cello Concerto, Where The Heart Is Pure (for mezzo soprano and chamber ensemble or orchestra), two string quartets, Beaming Contrasts (for guitar and string quartet), Rhapsodic Images (piano trio), Serenade for Winds (woodwind quintet), Through The Mountain (cello and piano), A Whistler's Dream (flute and piano), among many other compositions for orchestra, various chamber ensembles, and solo instruments.
His compositions have been recorded on five compact disks devoted to his music. The first two CDs are produced by New Albion Records, while the other three were produced by Lapis Island Records.
The first CD titled, Beaming Contrasts, was released in August of 1993 and features five compositions for various chamber ensembles, including the title composition. The second CD, Where The Heart Is Pure, was released in January of 1996 and features four additional compositions including his First Violin Concerto; the title composition, composed for mezzo soprano and chamber orchestra; and Delicate Sky, for violin, percussion, and piano. This CD was produced with the help of a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The third CD is titled, Peter Lewis: Three Suites for Guitar, and was released on April 8, 2003, and features the composer performing his own music. A fourth CD, Atlantic Crossing/Rhapsodic Images, was released on September 28, 2004. This CD features Kees Hülsmann, concertmaster of the Rotterdam Philharmonic; Matthew Edwards, pianist; and the Hiraga/Wyrick/Shapiro Trio, an excellent piano trio from the San Francisco Symphony.
Recent News: A fifth CD of Lewis' chamber music was released on March 20, 2007. This CD was made possible by a generous grant from the Argosy Foundation. The CD features the Ciompi String Quartet, Dorian Wind Quintet; Timothy Day, flute, and Marc Shapiro, piano. The compositions on this new CD are A Whistler's Dream (flute/piano duo), Serenade for Winds ( woodwind quintet), and River Shining Through (string quartet), in that order.
Peter Scott Lewis was born on August 31, 1953, in San Rafael, California, and grew up in both the San Francisco Bay Area and Washington State. A graduate of Yale University: School of Music and San Francisco Conservatory of Music, he studied composition with Andrew Imbrie, Jacob Druckman , Nicholas Maw, and Morton Subotnick, and studied guitar with Alirio Diaz and Carlos Barbosa-Lima, and conducting with Arthur Weisberg. He has also taught at the University of Washington and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. In addition, he has been a Composer-in-Residence and lecturer at various prominent musical venues throughout the United States and Europe, and has performed as a classical and jazz guitarist, clarinetist and conductor. His music is published by Theodore Presser.