Musician Peter Wiegold has improvised at midnight in a Karaoke house in Inner Mongolia with the “world’s leading” horse-hair fiddler, spent a year collaborating with a chief disciple of Ravi Shankar, conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and created a BBC Proms piece for 150 musicians at the Royal Albert Hall, including the Coldstream Guards, ancient trumpets from Uzbekistan, and the BBC Philharmonic. He recorded a 5* CD in Montreux as a homage to Miles Davis and, in over 100 gigs at his Club Inégales, collaborated with artists such as jazz legend Lionel Loueke, radical pop Gazelle Twin, folk singer Sam Lee, Maori shaman Horomona Horo, comedian Ria Lina, Will Self, Benjamin Zephaniah, and graphic novelist Woodrow Phoenix.
He began his career as a successful classical composer and conductor, but then at the age of 30 took a long time out, wanting to find out how music worked in other parts of the world, and he travelled widely.
Now he always works co-creatively, and often across media, with text, movement, theatre, video and so on. Given all the challenges such genre and media boundary-crossing has involved, in this talk he will reflect on what for him is the essence of a successful creative collaboration.
In his talk, Peter will consider what kind of presence, intelligence, awareness, playfulness leads to that vital creative spark? The sudden moment when the new, the spontaneous – the funny – happens. When it really comes together.
He will also show excerpts from his process and work, especially from his current project The Third Orchestra, a global orchestra with musicians from right across world traditions, classical, jazz, folk electronic and so on.
Peter Wiegold and The Third Orchestra
The Third Orchestra was born from the wonderful crucible of Club Inégales, and launched in a residency at the Barbican Centre in 2019. Peter likes to say it is like all the club nights in one! It has a 360° musical outlook.
The orchestra has presented across the UK, at ISPA in New York and opened Classical:NEXT in the Boulez-Saal in Berlin in 2024, collaborating overnight with the Stegreif improvising orchestra, Zafraan Ensemble, and Komische Oper.
The orchestra’s usp is to go to a centre with a core of musicians and then create new Third Orchestras, collaborating with the cultures and genres of each place they visit. They are currently planning projects in Holland, Finland, Switzerland, Slovakia, Uzbekistan and the US, as well as the UK. They will be delighted to perform with the Indian Indie band, The Tapi Project, at SOAS in London on 18th October.
Why the Third Orchestra?
The first orchestra: Formal, set roles, set forms, hierachical. The symphony orchestra, the jazz big band.
The second orchestra: A meets B, East meets West, Jazz meets Classical. Where players might come as representatives. Perhaps might be interested in fusion.
The third orchestra: Beyond the binary, a place where each individual brings their own story.
Members have come from Korea, China, India, Mauritius, Syria, Palestine, Greece, Brazil, Ukraine, Slovakia, Sweden, Germany and Spain as well as well as the UK.
Not so much fusion, rather we reflect the experience, sensibilites and lineage of each person, allowing them to stay being that musician – in an alchemy with the others.
It is led, not from the top, but from the centre. (from thethirdorchestra.org)
As a Research Professor at Brunel University (2003-18), he further researched new trans-cultural, cross-genre creative practice.