Peter Yates is a guitarist, composer, educator and multi-media artist. His work as a guitarist and chamber musician includes sixteen European tours with the Elgart/Yates Guitar Duo and continues with the voice/guitar duo GuitAria and the trio ensembleFRET. These groups have emphasized new and original composition, and have premiered over a hundred works, including many of his own. He also directs the UCLA and Cal Poly Pomona Guitar Ensembles in six concerts each season.

 

Performances have been hosted by the Gaudeamus Festival in Amsterdam, the American Academy in Rome, the Hindemith Institute in Switzerland, the Paris Swiss Helvetica Center, the Holywell Room in Oxford, Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the El Camino Guitar Festival, the Los Angeles Guitar Festival, San Miguel de Allende Guitar Festival, Composers INC, NACUSA, Meet the Composer, The Festival of American Music, the Ussachevsky Festival, the CSU Summer Arts Festival, microfest,

and the New York Guitar Festival. 

 

He has given concerts on the arpeggione, a bowed guitar, throughout the state, at the Los Angeles Guitar Festival and the UCLA Powell Library Rotunda Series. As an arpeggionist, he is featured in the recent British documentary film

Did You Say Bowed Guitar?

 

Yates' compositions include a growing repertoire of music for voice and guitar (with and without additional instruments), and multimedia. Radio Rodia, his chamber opera about the Watts Towers has been performed at the Living Arts Festival in Tulsa, at North Texas State University, the NOW Festival, Manual Arts Theater, and the Downtown Center in Pomona. His DVD ghost-town opera The Mother Lode, in which period photographs of hardrock mining come to life and sing, has been screened at the Echo Park Film Center, UCLA, music festivals and all over the world. His film Duplicate the Error features his original score for prepared guitar, a technique he pioneered and co-wrote a book about (Prepared Guitar Techniques). 

 

further information: youtube/peterfyates

email: pyates@ucla.edu