Peter Richard
Conte is an organist whose great skill and innovative style can be completely
enjoyed by any general audience-not just by other organists and organ buffs. He
programs transcriptions (many of them works he has arranged himself) of
recognizable audience-favorite pieces, including many of the great opera arias
and overtures. Not many performers today offer a Bach Prelude and Fugue
followed by Bizet's "Carmen" or a Strauss waltz.
Peter Richard Conte is Grand Court Organist of the world famous Wanamaker Organ
at the Macy’s Philadelphia department store. When not touring, he performs on
the six-manual, 28,000-pipe instrument twice daily, six days per week. The
Wanamaker Organ is
the largest fully functioning musical instrument in the world; Mr. Conte was
appointed Grand Court Organist in 1989, and is the fourth person to hold that
title since the organ first played in 1911.
Mr. Conte is highly regarded as a skillful performer and arranger of organ
transcriptions. He has been featured several times on National Public Radio and
on ABC television's "Good Morning America" and "World News
Tonight." His monthly radio show, "The Wanamaker Organ Hour",
airs on the first Sunday of each month, at 5 PM (Eastern), and can be heard via
the internet at WRTI.ORG.
He performs extensively throughout the United States and Canada under the
management of Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists, and was a featured artist at
the American Guild of Organists' National Convention in 2002, and at the
International Organ Festival in Aosta, Italy, in September 2004. He has
performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Peter Nero and the Philly Pops, and
with the Delaware and Allentown Symphonies. In addition to his concert career,
Mr. Conte serves as Choirmaster and Organist of St. Clement's Church,
Philadelphia, where he directs an eighteen-voice professional choir in music of
the Anglo Catholic tradition. That choir has recorded several
internationally-acclaimed compact discs on the DORIAN label.
Peter Richard Conte is an Associate of the American Guild of Organists, has
served on the executive board of its Philadelphia Chapter, and has presented
guild workshops on transcriptions and improvisation. Mr. Conte studied with
Larry Smith and Robert Rayfield at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he
was awarded the prestigious Performers' Certificate in Organ. He later returned
to Indiana University in 2008 to accept the School of Music's Distinguished
Alumni Award. During High School, he
studied with Robert Kennedy, while serving as Associate Organist at the
Cathedral of the Incarnation, Garden City, New York.
Mr. Conte appears on the GOTHIC, DORIAN, JAV and DTR labels.