PETER KENNARD
Musical Director
Peter is one of Australia's most prolific and enduring theatre composers – a performer, a studio based music producer and musical director with a career spanning near 30 years. His theatre credits include work for an “A list” of Sydney based performing arts companies and directors....including a 26 year association with Kim Carpenter's Theatre of Image (most recently Brett and Wendy for Sydney Festival 2019) - David Clarkson's Stalker Theatre (most recently the national touring production Creature/Dot and the Kangaroo) multiple productions for Q Theatre (dir Katrina Douglas), John Bell (dir Theatre of Image's Monkey – Journey to the West), Jim Sharman (The Three Furies by Stephen Sewell – 2010), Legs on the Wall Co, Ruckus Ensemble to name but a few.
Peter has also been awarded grants for community based arts projects on numbers of occasions – from Arts NSW for the Forster Tuncurry Oyster Festival, Arts NSW CASP grant as musical director for Forbes' Kalari-Lachlan River Arts Festival and a Blue Mts City of the Arts Trust grant to present D'Yari - an evening of cross-cultural dance and music in collaboration with local Blue Mts performers and Kurdish musician Muharrem Aslan.
He is a multi instrumentalist – keyboards, guitar, drumkit and all things percussive. He is highly regarded as a percussionist in the Sydney “world music” scene – currently performing with Bukhu Ganburged., John Robinson and Bertie McMahon in the extraordinary contemporary Mongolian fusion band Equus (www.equusmusic.com.au)
He holds a Masters in Contemporary Improvisation (music) degree from Macquarie University, Sydney, for which he was also honoured with the Vice Chancellor's award for academic excellence
"Composer and musician Peter Kennard was situated on stage in this simple studio setting, and was beautifully in sync with the storytelling. The way he captured Whiteley’s brushstrokes and gestures with percussion and drums offered a charged emotion that punched this production into a fourth dimension"
GINA FAIRLEY: Review of Brett and Wendy ... A Love Story Bound by Art, Riverside Theatre.