SELECTED AWARDS, GRANTS AND RESIDENCIES
PETER KNIGHT: composer - trumpeter - producer
EDUCATION
M.Mus (perf) University of Melbourne
DMA (composition) Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University
APPOINTMENTS
Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity residency faculty 2025 (ongoing)
The Substation Board of Directors 2024 (ongoing)
Australian Art Orchestra Artistic Director 2013-2023
Florence Street Studios co-Founder 2010 (ongoing)
AWARDS AND NOMINATIONS
2025 ARIA Award: Nominee for Jazz Album of the Year for Too Long; Didn’t Read
2024 APRA Art Music Fund: Recipient for Reality Hunger with Nadia Ratsimandresy
2024 Music Victoria Awards: Winner Best Experimental Work for MOKUY
2024 APRA/AMC Art Music Awards: Nominee Hand to Earth MOKUY Jazz Work of the Year
2023 APRA Art Music Awards: Nominee, Award for Excellence in Experimental Music for My Self in That Moment with Chamber Made
2022 Songlines Music Awards (UK): Nominee for Asia Pacific for Hand to Earth
2022 ARIA Awards: Nominee for World Music Album of the Year for Hand to Earth
2022 APRA/AMC Art Music Awards: Winner, Luminary Award for Organisation for Australian Art Orchestra
2022 Music Victoria Awards: Nominee Diaspora Award for Hand to Earth
2021 APRA/AMC Art Music Awards: Winner, Work of the Year Electroacoustic for Closed Beginnings
2021 ARIA Awards: Nominee for Jazz Album of the Year for Closed Beginnings
2020 APRA/AMC Art Music Awards: Finalist, Performance of the Year
2019 Australia Council Arts Leaders program: Arts leadership residency program
2017 Albert H. Maggs Composition Prize: For Diomira
2017 APRA/AMC Art Music Awards: Finalist, Instrumental Work of the Year Diomira
2016 Green Room Theatre Awards: Winner, Design and Realisation for Endings with Tamara Saulwick. Winner, Best Alternative and Hybrid Performance
2016 Music Victoria Awards: Winner Jazz Album of the Year for Way Out West
2016 APRA/AMC Art Music Awards: Finalist, Award for Excellence Individual
2016 Australian Music Prize (AMP): Short list Daughter’s Fever with Grand Salvo
2015 Helpmann Awards: Nomination for Endings, Best New Australian Work
2014 APRA/AMC Art Music Awards: Winner, Australian Art Orchestra, Award for Excellence by an Organisation
2014 OMI Artist In Residence, upstate NY
2013 Australia Council Music Fellowship 2013-14
2013 Australian Arts in Asia Awards: Finalist for Bright Splinters with Sunny Kim
2013 Bell Jazz Awards: Winner, Best Jazz Album Fish Boast of Fishing
2013 Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University: Alumnus of the Year
2012 APRA/AMC Art Music Awards: Finalist, Jazz Composition of the Year
2012 AIR Awards: Finalist, Jazz Album of the Year for The Effects of Weather
2011 Green Room Theatre Awards: Finalist, Best Composition & Sound Design for Pin Drop
2008 Bell Jazz Awards: Winner, Australian Jazz Ensemble of the Year
2007 Tom and Isobel Rolston Scholarship: Banff Centre for the Arts Fall residency
2007 Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University: Full doctoral research scholarship
2005 Keith and Elizabeth Travelling Fellowship recipient
SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY
2025 For a Moment the Sky Knew My Name. ROOM40
2025 Ŋurru Wäŋa: Hand to Earth. ROOM40
2025 Too Long; Didn’t Read: with Helen Svoboda, Quinn Knight, Theo Carbo. Earshift Music
2025 Now We Are Branches and Leaves: with øjeRum. 12K (NY)
2025 Raki: with Daniel Wilfred and Paul Grabowsky. Earshift Music
2023 MOKUY: Hand to Earth. ROOM40
2022 Shadow Phase: Peter Knight solo. Room40
2022 Swing Bridge: Alvin Alvin Lucier/Australian Art Orchestra. Mode Records (NY)
2022 The Prey and the Ruler. Senyawa, with Lawrence English ROOM40
2021 Crossed & Recrossed: Peter Knight/Australian Art Orchestra. Hospital Hill
2021 Hand to Earth: self titled AAO Recordings
2021 Closed Beginnings: Tariro Mavondo/Peter Knight/Reuben Lewis AAO Recordings
2020 Sometimes Home Can Grow Stranger Than Space: Peter Knight/Andrea Keller/ Tilman Robinson/ Australian Art Orchestra. AAO Recordings
2020 Im/modesty: Sia Ahmad/Australian Art Orchestra Flaming Pines (UK)
2019 Vesper: Kim Myhr/Australian Art Orchestra. Hubro (Norway)
2018 Moons of Jupiter. Paul Grabowsky Sextet. Besant Hall (UK)
2017 Water Pushes Sand: with Erik Griswold/Australian Art Orchestra. Jazzhead
2016 Way Out West. Peter Knight with Satsuki Odamura. Jazzhead
2016 Nylipidgi. Paul Grabowsky ABC Music
2016 Fabliaux. Dave Douglas & Monash Art Ensemble. Greenleaf (USA)
2015 Daughter's Fever. Peter Knight and Paddy Mann (Grand Salvo). HellosQuare
2014 Re: Residual. Peter Knight/Dung Nguyen with Joe Talia, Blach Sifilchi, LENA, Tilman Robinson, Dan West. (remixes). Parenthèses (Belgium)
2012 Allotrope. Peter Knight (solo), Peter Knight Music
2011 Fish Boast of Fishing. Peter Knight (sextet). Peter Knight Music
2011 Residual. Peter Knight and Dung Nguyen. Parenthèses Records (Belgium)
2010 The Effects of Weather. With Way Out West. Jazzhead
RECENT PERFORMANCE HIGHLIGHTS
2025 The Barbican Centre with Shabaka & Hand to Earth, De Singel (Antwerp) Hand to Earth. Pierre Boulez Saal (Berlin) Shabaka & Hand to Earth. Dark MOFO, Phoenix Central Park, Arts House for Liquid Architecture with Hand to Earth. Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity Soundweavings residency faculty
2024 Lincoln Centre NYC, Public Records (Brooklyn) Suoni Per Il Popolo Montreal, Ottawa Jazz Festival, Vancouver Jazz Festival. Volume. Festival Sydney, Powerhouse Brisbane with Hand to Earth. Sydney Opera House Sydney Symphony Orchestra, - Wata
2023 Four Winds Festival, Rising Melbourne, Vivid Sydney, Korea including Jeonju International Sori Festival, Melbourne Jazz Festival, Jazztopad Wrocław, Bimhuis (Amsterdam). Rainy Days Festival (Luxembourg), Music Meeting (Nijmegen, Netherlands) with Hand to Earth
2022 Shadow Phase (solo) album launches at Improwerk Oslo, Soweiso Berlin (with Tony Buck), SMOG Brussels, AngelicA Bologna, Edinburgh The Waverly, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, GIOFest GlasgowPierre Boulez Saal (Berlin), WOMADelaide, Darwin Festival with Hand to Earth. Substation Melbourne. Premiere season of ‘1988’ with Dung Nguyen Fresh Water Salt Water premiere. Melbourne Recital Centre, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK) My Self In That Moment with Chamber Made, premiere The Substation.
2021 Hamer Hall Melbourne. Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Wata by Paul Grabowsky
2020 Toronto Grand Hall for Soundstreams. Nicole Lizée/AAO, Karappo Okesutura Vol3. Asia TOPA
2019 Jazzfest Berlin with Anthony Braxton Sonic Genome plus AAO The Plains headlineconcert. Shanghai Performing Arts Festival, Chengdu Arts Centre, Shaan Xi Grand Theatre, AAO/Erik Griswold Water Pushes Sand. Barunga Festival & Ngukurr Arts Centre (NT) Hand to Earth. MONA FOMA Striborg/AAO.
2018 London Jazz Festival Southbank Centre. AAO Sometimes Home Can Grow Stranger Than Space. NFM Wroclaw Poland for Jazztopad premiere of The Plains, Peter Knight/AAO. China tour 27 dates, Alter by Peter Knight & Tamara Saulwick. Brighton Festival, On the Boards (Seattle), PuSh Festival (Vancouver). Endings by Tamara Saulwick and Peter Knight. Dark MOFO Striborg/AAO. Melbourne Jazz Festival AAO/Kim Myhr & Tony Buck, premiere of Vesper. Yokohama Performing Arts Meeting Toshimaru Nakamura & Keiichiro Shibya
SELECTED RECENT SCORES AND COMMISSIONS
Double Vision (2025). Score for short film by Dogmilk collective premiered with live performance at ACMI for Double Vision
Surreal Shorts (2024). Original score for silent films commissioned for live performance by Federation Square for Not So Silent
Kid Snow (2023) Original score for feature dir Paul Goldman composed with Warren Ellis. Premiere Sydney Film Festival 2024
Loin de la Route (2023) Original score for film by Hugo Rivera da Silva prod Alfama Films premiered Lisboa FilmFest 2025
Fresh Water Salt Water (2022). For Australian Art Orchestra
1988 (2020). Co-commission with Dung Nguyen by Australian Art Orchestra audio visual work
My Self In That Moment (2021). Commissioned by Chamber Made and Experimenta. New work for iPads and soprano voice. With Tamara Saulwick. Premiered at The Substation 2022. Performances in Now Or Never 2025
Traces (2019). Original music for film by Amiel Courtin-Wilson
The Plains (2018). Commissioned by the Australian Art Orchestra. For 9-piece ensemble
Sharp Folds (2018). Commissioned by the Australian Art Orchestra for Sometimes Home Can Grow Stranger than Space
911 (2018): Commissioned by Monash University of Art (MUMA) and Melbourne International Film Festival. Original music for film by Rick Charnoski (USA)
Endings - Radiophonic version (2017). Commissioned by ABC Radio National for Soundproof
Gasthorpe Shed (2017): Commissioned by BighArt and Ten Days on the Island (Tas). With Ensemble Offspring
Diomira (2016): Commissioned by Metropolis New Music Festival for 11-piece AAO ensemble
Field Lines (2016): Sound design and composition for Cameron Robbins' solo exhibition at MONA (TAS)
Alter (2015): Commissioned by Arts House for Festival of Live Art. Audio visual work for 16 iPads with Tamara Saulwick
Corpus (2015): Electroacoustic dance score for Tina Havers Company (Germany) premiere Bremen, Germany
Memento Mori (2014): Commissioned by Aarhus Festival (Denmark) with Tamara Saulwick, Joe Talia Peter Laugesen
Make Them Dance (2014): Commissioned by Vanessa Tomlinson. Solo for bass drums, amplifiers, pedals and various objects
Quintet for Extended Brass (2013): Commissioned by the Australian Brass Quintet for Sydney International Festival of Brass
Endings (2015): Commissioned by Sydney Festival and Arts House (Melbourne). Score for theatre/music performance work with Tamara Saulwick and Paddy Mann
Pin Drop - Radiophonic version (2012): ABC Radio National
Seddon Archives (2011): Commissioned by Big West Festival. Audio walk/performance. With Tamara Saulwick
Dot Dash (2010): Commissioned by International Trumpet Guild for annual conference. Fanfare for prepared trumpet quartet
Pin Drop (2011): Commissioned by Malthouse Theatre. Electroacoustic score and sound design for solo theatre/performance work. With Tamara Saulwick
SELECTED ARTICLES AND PUBLICATIONS
Resounding relations: Habits of improvisation in Yolŋu song and contemporary Australian jazz Curkpatrick, S., Burke, R., Gaby, A., Knight, P., & Wilfred, D. (2024). Published in Performance Research, 28(6), 47-56. Article 28.6
Improvisation as Interlingua: The Australian Art Orchestra Creative Music Intensive
Australian Jazz and Improvisation Research Network (AJIRN) conference proceedings 2022
Solo works for trumpet and electronics: development, process and context
DDCA Symposium proceedings 2015, Victorian College of the Arts: The Outstanding Field: Artistic Research Emerging from the Academy
New Directions at the Australian Art Orchestra. Music Forum Winter 2013 Vol. 19 No.3/ISSN 1327-9300 P. 24
Allotrope: Works for Solo Trumpet, Laptop, Pedals and Guitar Amplifier. International Computer Music Conference Proceedings 2012
Insight: Residual. Resonate Magazine. Australian Music Council October 2011
Creativity and Improvisation: A Journey into Music. Published in 'Music Autoethnographies: Making Autoethnography Sing/Making Music Personal'. Australian Academic Press P. 73-84
Erik Griswold: In Conversation with Peter Knight. Published in 'Extempore' Vol 5 November 2010
Towards the Limit Experience in Music Performance. Published in 'Music Forum' May-July 2005 Vol. 11 No.3/ISSN 1327-9300 P. 38-44
The Future of the Melbourne International Jazz Festival. Published in 'The Age' Green Guide 18th November 2001