Faculty

Profile

Formerly the cellist of the Royale Trio and winner of the Manogue International and National Arts Club competitions, Peter Prosser has had a multifaceted career.  A graduate of the University of Alabama and the Manhattan School of Music he’s worked as a soloist, chamber musician, teacher, record producer and conductor.  Highlights include recording the Saint-Saens, Lalo and Dvorak concerti for Alabama Public Television, the Haydn D major Concerto for Kentucky Educational Television, producing CDs for the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra, making his Broadway conducting debut in 2003 with the production of Gypsy starring Bernadette Peters, and conducting the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra at the Centennial Gala for the Philadelphia Orchestra.  He’s also conducted on the American Mosaic series at Concordia College, at the Alabama Summer Music Center, and served as the associate conductor for the National Tour of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods starring  Cleo Laine, as assistant conductor for the Broadway revival of La Cage Aux Folles and the 2008 revival of Gypsy with Patti Lupone and is currently an assistant conductor and principal cellist for the 2009 revival of West Side Story.    

Other forays into pop culture have found him working with Willie Nelson, Chris Botti,  Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones, appearing as solo cellist with Shirley Bassey at Carnegie Hall, at Town Hall with the late Nancy LaMott, and with Bernadette Peters at Avery Fisher Hall.  Other recordings include contemporary solo cello works by Robert Dix and Joseph Levin, blues with Eric Clapton and B.B.King,, and a Christmas album, Animal’s Christmas with Art Garfunkel and Amy Grant. Radio and television appearances include The Listening Room and Young Artist Showcase on WQXR (New York), Around New York on WNYC, West Coast Weekend on KQED (San Francisco), The Today show with Bernadette Peters, The View and Good Morning America with Patti LuPone, the Today show (weekend edition) with Eartha Kitt and Saturday Night Live. Having joined the faculty of the Mannes College of Music  in 1991, he is also a performance associate at Hunter College, has served as  adjunct faculty at City College and has also taught at the Aspen Music Festival and the Meadowmount School of Music.  His teachers include David Cowley, Bernard Greenhouse, Alan Harris and William Pleeth.  Mr. Prosser is also inordinately fond of eating breakfast out.