Peter Bennett

Online Press Kit

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Clockwise from top: at Shad Fest in Beacon, NY; at The Art Gallery, Southwest , ME; at the National Whistlers' Convention, Louisburg, NC; with Senecca Moon String Band; on Jackson Square, New Orleans, LA. Center: Sadie at the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, CA.

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PETER BENNETT

Singer/Songwriter & Busker

Glass Harmonica, Hurdy Gurdy, Pursedlip Whistle

1000 Bourbon St., #290, New Orleans, LA 70116

504-481-4987

e-mail: glassharper@hotmail.com

OCCUPATION: Musician and song writer. Plays numerous instruments including glass harmonica, the "pursed-lip" whistle, hurdy gurdy, guitar, string bass, autoharp, harmonica, piano.

MUSICAL BACKGROUND: Singer/songwriter, busker and folk singer in venues ranging from Harvard Square in Cambridge, Mass., Washington Square in New York City, South Street in Philadelphia, Mallory Dock in Key West, Jackson Square in New Orleans, 4th Avenue in Anchorage; coffee houses and college concert venues throughout the United States and various "farmer's" markets.

Member of Amethyst (blues) in 1976-77, The Tex Roe Band (country) in 1979-80 and Seneca Moon String Band (old-timey, blues & folk) since 1986.

First place award winner in Classical Music Whistling at the Fourth International Whistleoff at Carson City, NV, 1981. Gave whistlers' workshops and concerts at Hudson River Revival and Thomas Homestead Festival. Appeared with Pete Seeger in numerous "save the river" concerts along the Hudson River in Eastern New York State.

Featured as solo whistler in series of concerts with B.C. Pops Orchestra (Binghamton, NY); on national TV's P.M. MAGAZINE, THE WORLD OF PEOPLE, REAL PEOPLE and THAT'S INCREDIBLE. Featured as harmonica player and whistler on Tex Roe's L.P.: CORTLAND COUNTRY MUSIC, with Seneca Moon on its eponymously named tape of old-timey fiddle band music, and his own cassette tape: A TOUCH OF GLASS featuring traditional, classical and original music played on the glass harmonica (with Ruth Thomson, Irish harpist).

FORMER OCCUPATION: Micro Computer Consultant specializing in installation of business systems using MS-DOS computers, Novell networks and the IBM System/36 PC "desktop mini" computer. Twelve years experience marketing, installing and training in a broad variety of business applications.

BUSINESS BACKGROUND: Fifteen years in industrial sales and management of a subcontract metal fabrication company. Seven years experience as City Clerk for the City of Cortland, NY.

Former manager, Computerland of Newburgh, NY.

Operated GREAT ! SCOTT INFORMATION SERVICES, the first word processing & computer service bureau in Cortland, NY.

JOURNALISM BACKGROUND: Associate Editor, Glass Music World, quarterly journal of Glass Music International, Inc. Founding editor of The International Whistler, newsletter of the International Association of Whistlers. Former general assignment reporter and ski columnist for the Troy (NY) Record Newspapers. Hosted weekly ski report show on WFLN, Troy FM radio station. Photo editor of 1959 Onondagan, Syracuse University Student Year Book.

TECHNICAL WRITING ASSIGNMENTS: Writer for computer industry journals and magazines including articles published by "80-Microcomputing," "Load 80" and "Computer Retail News." Wrote documentation for a computer program designed to help small business control burgeoning compensation insurance costs.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE: Substitute teacher in Data Processing: Cortland-Madison BOCES, 1982. Lecturer at IBM corporate seminars on personnel and training implications of shop floor data collection installation.

OTHER INTERESTS: Down Hill & Cross Country Skiing, Sailing, Photography, Sculpture, White Water Kayaking, Natural History, Travel.

REPRESENTATIVE WHISTLING REPERTOIRE:	Mozart: "Rondo" from the Fourth Horn Concerto Haydn: "Finale" from the Trumpet Concerto Bach: "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" Trad.: "Soldiers' Joy" Trad.: "One Hundred Pipers" Clarke: "Trumpet Voluntary" Arndt: "Nola"
REPRESENTATIVE GLASS REPERTOIRE:	Bach: "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" Trad.: "Amazing Grace" Beethoven: "Fur Elise" Trad: "Londonderry Aire" O'Carrolan: "Sheebeg and Sheemore" Carmichael: "Stardust" Pachelbel: "Canon in D"
REPRESENTATIVE HURDY GURDY REPRETOIRE:	Trad.: "Amazing Grace Trad.: "Danny Boy" Trad.: "Simple Gifts" Trad.: "Skye Boat Song" Trad.: "The Ocean Winds do Blow"

NEWS RELEASE

PETER C. BENNETT - 1000 Bourbon St., #290, New Orleans, LA 70116

504/481-4987

e-mail: glassharper@hotmail.com

MUSICAL GLASSES: AN OLD INSTRUMENT IN MODERN TRAPPINGS

The harmony, history and physics of musical glasses is featured at appearances by glass harmonicist Peter Bennett, New Orleans singer/songwriter and musician specializing in non- traditional instruments.

Mr. Bennett, an internationally-known busker and authority on glass music, plays classical, folk and popular music on his collection of stemmed goblets which are tuned with distilled water. He is Associate Editor of "Glass Music World," a quarterly journal with international distribution. Well known for performances at festivals, farmers' markets and street fairs, Mr. Bennett has travelled widely in the U.S. playing music for audiences from Cambridge to San Francisco; from Anchorage to Key West. He hauls his 27-goblet set of musical glasses from place to place in its case, a specially adapted Vermont-style garden cart. Ready to travel the instrument weighs nearly one hundred and fifty pounds.

The musical glasses, according to Mr. Bennett, is an instrument that was very popular in eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe. Mozart and Beethoven wrote for the device, which is sounded by rubbing the rims of the goblets with wet fingers. The sound of the glass harp, according to a nineteenth century news article reviewing a concert, is "...heavenly, even angelic, with the ability to sweep the listener away with its soft, harmonious sounds." It was used by the great charlatan, Dr. Franz Mesmer, the Austrian hypnotist, to "Mesmerize" his subjects.

A multi-instrumentalist, Mr. Bennett was winner of the first place award for classical whistling at the International Whistleoff in Carson City, Nevada, in 1981 and has been a featured performer at the National Whistlers' Convention in Louisburg, North Carolina. Formerly a crew member of the Hudson River Sloop Woody Guthrie in downstate New York, Bennett has appeared in "save the river" concerts with Pete Seeger, has led whistler's work shops at the Great Hudson River Revival at Croton-On-Hudson, NY, and done stage shows at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and the Kerrville (Texas) Folk Festival. Several years ago he appeared as whistling soloist with the B.C."Pops" Orchestra in its annual Christmas concert series in Binghamton, NY.

A member of the "old-timey" Seneca Moon String Band, Mr. Bennett plays several traditional instruments including string bass, 12-string and classical guitar, autoharp and harmonica.

Mr. Bennett's glass music can be heard on his tape "A Touch of Glass" while his whistling is featured on Seneca Moon String Band's recordings and on Tex Roe's LP record "Cortland Country Music." An environmental activist, Bennett also performs his own songs about our world and how we treat her.

This article appeared on the "Opinion" page of the Anchorage Daily News for Monday, August 13, 2001 and was downloaded from their website www.adn.com/vault/

On a cloudy, warmish, humid day in Anchorage, a walker passing Northway Mall's outdoor market was drawn to the warbly sounds of the Alaska Flag Song. Peter Bennett, an aging hippie type with a bushy gray beard and a gray ponytail, was in front of the market's tiny music stage, coaxing a tableful of water glasses into producing a respectable rendition of the state song.

About halfway through, missed notes started piling up. "Oh boy, I'm losing it here," he said, and he stopped.

"I'm new to Alaska," he explained without prompting to his handful of listeners. "At the Saturday Market, I was asked, Can you play the Alaska Flag Song?'

" No,' I said. Can you sing it?'

"Well he did -- and I still couldn't play it. So I went to the library and looked it up."

A white-haired woman stepped forward and pressed a dollar bill into his hand. "Thank you, ma'am," he said as she left. "Thank you."

He looked up at his audience.

"These are 26 water-tuned goblets. They cover two full octaves."

An eclectic collection it was: small goblets, large goblets, even larger goblets, a green goblet, a gold goblet, an ordinary water glass, flat-bottom champagne glasses, white wine glasses, all filled within an inch or so of the top and mounted on thin yellow wooden blocks with elastic cords crisscrossing their bases.

Bennett switched to more familiar musical terrain. "Here's a Midwestern tune," he said as he began "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."

"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto."

Still playing, he gestured with his head east toward the Chugach, visible as a wall of green topped by a low-hanging roof of gray clouds. "One look at those mountains will tell you that."

-- Matt Zencey

Peter "The Glassman" Bennett

1000 Bourbon St., #290, New Orleans, LA, 70116

504-481-4987