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Pianist Peter Halstead sits at a Steinway grand piano among recording microphones set up in front of the books of a home library.

Peter Halstead Recordings Released

October 24, 2024

We are delighted to share several recordings and writing projects by Tippet Rise co-founder Peter Halstead, which are now available in the Tippet Rise Music Download Library.

This past September, Peter recorded Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata in the Olivier Music Barn at Tippet Rise. Within the pages of an accompanying e-book, Peter provides detailed program notes on the composition, Beethoven’s life, and a chronicle of the composer’s relationship with his “immortal beloved,” Josephine Brunsvik. Peter also includes several of his own personal reflections and memories, and his experiences as a student of Beethoven.

Peter was recorded performing Beethoven’s The Tempest in December 2023, in a tractor barn that also serves as a recording studio within Colorado’s Vail Valley. An accompanying e-book similarly details program notes on the work, as well as an account of the wintry recording session itself.

Lastly, Volumes I and II of Peter’s six-album piano series, The Himalaya Sessions – recorded in Colorado in 2006 – are now available on the Tippet Rise Music Download Library. Volume I, titled Excesses and Excuses, is a compilation of compositions all written in the key of D Flat, featuring works by Chopin, Debussy, Erik Satie, Rachmaninoff, Liszt, and Copland. Volume II, titled Sunken Cathedrals, includes pieces by Alkan, Mendelssohn, Debussy, Chopin, and Fauré.

Tippet Rise co-founder Peter Halstead is a pianist, photographer, novelist, and poet. He has published 11 volumes of poems as well as the novel Bug the Great. In recent years he has published A Winter Ride, which combines prose, photos, and poetry to create a sense of the anticipation of winter in Montana. The two-volume series, Tippet Rise Beginnings, describes the personal journey that brought Cathy and Peter Halstead to realize their dream of the intersection of art, music, poetry and land in the creation of Tippet Rise.