Peter Hope Recordings

Peter Hope was born in Stockport, England, in 1930. After studying composition at Manchester University he worked for two years in London with Ernest Tomlinson in the arranging department of Mills Music.

Since then he has been a full time composer and music arranger. For many years he was a frequent arranger for the BBC Concert Orchestra, and many of his arrangements of traditional tunes made for that orchestra during the 1950s and 60s, including Mexican Hat Dance, The Camptown Race and Lark in the Clear Air, have become classics of their
genre. He has created many albums, CDs and individual song arrangements for a wide variety of artists including Jose Carreras, Kiri te Kanawa, Jessye Norman and Nacho Cano from the famous Spanish pop group Meccano. With Nacho he has also written music for the Madrid Olympic bid and for the marriage of the crown prince of Spain. He has worked as an arranger and orchestrator in Holland, Germany, Spain and the USA.

He wrote the theme music for the BBC television news used from 1969 until the 1980s.His numerous light music compositions include the Ring of Kerry suite which won an Ivor Novello Award in 1969.
Since 2000 he has concentrated on compositions in more extended forms and though more serious than his early light music, are in an accessible idiom, partly derived from his extensive commercial writing. These include a Concertino for bassoon and orchestra, a Recorder Concerto, a String Trio, a Divertimento for Guitar and String Trio, Four Sketches for oboe, bassoon and piano, as well as two large scale choral works Along the Shore, The Song of Solomon and other vocal music.