The Performer and Teacher
Peter has performed in oratorios, recitals and operas throughout his singing career. As an actor-singer, he has appeared professionally in musicals in summer stock, dinner theaters and regional theaters, as well as many dramatic plays with Bluestone Actors Project, a professional repertory company based in Westchester County, New York.
From 1992-2004, he was the music and theater arts teacher at the John Jay High School and the Rippowam Cisqua School where he directed several choruses (grades 5-12), musicals and dramatic plays. For five years (2004-2009) Peter was the Director of Music for the Children’s Aid Society Chorus program where he administered to 18 choruses (K-12) and directed five in New York City. Peter’s two select choirs from The Children’s Aid Society performed in Carnegie Hall with Mandy Patinkin, The Rainbow Room with Donna Murphy, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Waldorf Astoria and Radio City Music Hall. The Children’s Aid Senior (HS) Chorus received a “superior” rating and first place overall in April, 2008 in Maryland. Peter also received a “Maestro” award as well. In response to the need for a repertoire appropriate for the diverse cultural backgrounds of city children, Peter composed and arranged original music in various styles from folk to jazz to Latino for his choruses to sing. In 2010, he had the honor of conducting the All County (Westchester) Elementary Chorus (grades 4-6) for their annual concert. The All-County Chorus participants were selected by their music teachers from approximately 55 school districts in the county. Please listen to one of the songs “Oye!” from the concert https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3lWw2GmBOM
After leaving full time teaching, Peter had been an adjunct professor of voice at the Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, the Music Director of The Old Mill Singers, a 60-member community chorus, and the Music Director at the Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Chappaqua, New York. He has a piano and voice studio in Pleasantville and Yorktown. His voice students over the years have been selected to the NYSSMA All-State, All-Eastern, and National festivals.
The Composer Peter Frost has been commissioned to write choral compositions by the Briarcliff Congregational Church, The Children’s Aid Society in New York City, and by the Great Neck North High School Jazz Choir. In 2013, he was commissioned to write five new arrangements for Colgate University for The 21st Century Colgate Songbook. Peter’s choral pieces have been published by GIA Publications, Santa Barbara Music Publishing of California, and Zintzo Music.
When Peter entered the “American Prize” composition he received a personal letter from David Katz, the director. Mr. Katz wrote the following: “Your A Musing Ride generated considerable interest for its rhythmic inventiveness and what is even more valued, its infectious profile. If this piece is any example, your music in one’s ear sticks there, and that is the sign of a special gift – so I wanted to write to offer a personal bravo.”
In 2010 his song cycle e. e. Cumming’s “Verbatim" was performed in Paramus, New Jersey, and Briarcliff, New York, featuring soprano Eileen Clark, clarinetist Jeremy Goldsmith, and pianist Hui-Mei-Lin. One of his compositions, Pianos Dueling (2009) for two pianos, four hands, was performed in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Taiwan (2016) by pianists Hui-Mei Lin and Bari Mort. In 2018 Peter formed and conducted “New Works Collective” which debuted eleven new works. From the recordings of this concert, three choral pieces and four art songs were contracted to publish. In 2023 selections from his song cycle “Rival Gardens”, poetry by Connie Wanek were premiered in Stockbridge, Massachusetts by Emily Kate Gentile (soprano), and Hui-Mei Lin (piano).