Peter Litman (b.1978) won the Organ Scholarship to Canterbury Christchurch College in 1996. He remained there as organ scholar for a further 2 years, studying for a BA (Hons) in Music, majoring in Organ Performance. He chose not to follow an organ career and instead dedicated his study to Choral Conducting. He completed an MA in Choral Education at the University of Surrey, Roehampton under Graham Welch and Colin Durrant.

Peter’s début as a choral conductor was in 1997 when he conducted Britten’s St Nicholas in St John’s Smith Square, London. Since then Peter has been in demand as a conductor nationally and locally. Other major venues have included St Bride’s Fleet Street, and the Mayfair Chapel London; Lancaster Town Hall; York Minster, Canterbury and Rochester Cathedrals; and internationally in Zwiefalten Muenster, Zwiefalten; and Martinskirche, Pfullingen, South West Germany; and important cultural centres in France and Belgium.

His current choral employment includes: Conductor of Faversham Choral Society; Musical Director of the Deal and Walmer Handelian Society (founded by Handelian Scholar Dr James Hall in 1946); Director of Canterbury Baroque (), a semi-professional Baroque ensemble; Principal conductor, Ashton Hall Restoration Project, Lancaster; and Associate conductor of Canterbury Christchurch University College Choral Society

Peter is also a choral advisor to the Canterbury International Choral Festival; and the Deal Festival of Music.

Peter has recently trained with conductor-composer Bob Chilcott, and has worked alongside Doreen Rao; and Mike Brewer with the National Youth Choir of Great Britain.

When not conducting adults, Peter works as a choral animateur in the Kent primary schools, organising large choral days for children from schools where there is little music provision. Numbers of children that attend these events range from 180 to 250.

Peter is currently pursuing a PhD in Choral Education with Graham Welch and Colin Durrant, at the Institute of Education University of London, where he is investigating choral gesture and nonverbal communication.

As a conductor, Peter has a strong affinity with the choral works of Handel and is currently reviving much of his lost choral repertoire with the Deal and Walmer Handelian Society. With the Handelians he hopes to revive some of Handel’s ‘Catholic Motets’, one such motet is James Hall’s arrangement of Saeviat Tellus (First performed by the society in 1985).

Other works of note he has conducted include: Mozart’s Requiem; Fauré’s Requiem; Mendelssohn’s St Paul and Hymn of Praise; Rossini’s Petite Messe Solonelle; Haydn’s Creation and Nelson Mass; Bach’s B Minor Mass and Magnificat in D; Copland’s In the Beginning; Handel’s Messiah (1742 version), Alexander’s Feast, and Coronation Anthems; Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms; Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb and St Nicholas; Chilcott’s Jubilate; Rutter’s Requiem; Vivaldi’s Gloria and Magnificat.

Recently, Peter worked with Nigel Rogers in a performance of the Monteverdi Vespers; also he has been awarded a one year mentorship with Stephen Jackson through the ABCD. In 2005 he was appointed coordinator of Conducting on the MA Choral Education at Roehampton University, West London.

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