Peter Crockford studied piano at the Birmingham School of Music (now the Royal Conservatoire) and then won a scholarship to study piano accompaniment at the Royal Northern College of Music.
Most of his career has been spent working with singers both in opera and on the concert platform. He has been fortunate enough to travel over much of the world playing, conducting and coaching - ‘hitting the heights’ in Kathmandu (with recitals and concerts at the top of the world) and ‘plumbing the depths’ in Antarctica (on a cruise at the bottom of the world accompanying Janine Roebuck).
Among the wonderful teachers he has had, two have had a particularly fundamental effect on his music making:- Peter Gellhorn and George Hurst. These two were exacting in their demands, without ego regarding the music, and imparted the sort of knowledge which is, unfortunately, not so readily available these days.
There are many great things that happen to performers during their career and among his own personal favourites (apart from the two already mentioned) are: conducting the European Tour of West Side Story, being assistant to the General Music Director at the Stadt Theater, Freiburg, the many tours conducting and playing all over the Middle and Far East (including conducting the combined Youth and Radio Orchestras for a Presidential Gala in Kuala Lumpur) and, probably most of all, working on several productions with the young performers of the National Youth Music Theatre.
His ethos when working is to help the performer or student to achieve their potential, approach their study with humility and diligence, and to awaken them to the joy of sharing music.
There has never been much time in life for anything other than music, but the one thing he has managed to do in recent years is to take some cabinet making classes and, although he considers that he is still very much on a learning curve, he was thrilled to have a piece exhibited recently at Kelmscott House by the William Morris Society.
In October 2019 he received an injury to his left wrist and, although he did continue playing in concert at this time and even went to Sri Lanka to be musical director (from the piano with a small ensemble) for a production of Cavalleria Rusticana, it was obvious that some strategy would have to be found to allow his wrist time to recover properly. A friend suggested that he go and see Deren Eriylmaz who is an exponent of the Taubman approach to playing. With the slightly altered approach, it was amazing how quickly he found ways round the injury and was able to continue playing at the same time as allowing his wrist the space it needed to recover. He studied with her all through lockdown (sometimes live and sometimes online) and is pleased to have looked at most of this programme with her – he is very grateful to her and wishes that he could have met her much earlier in his career.