Peter Dijkstra (1978) began singing as a boy in the Roder Jongenskoor, singing most of the solo-parts, and separate solo’s, until his voice changed. In 1987, he sang the first boy in a production of Mozart's Magic Flute by The Netherlands Opera Foundation. Also as a boy-soprano he worked with Gustav Leonhardt, Sigiswald Kuyken en Max van Egmond in a series of Bach-cantatas in Amsterdam.
He studied conducting and singing at The Royal Conservatory of The Hague, and gradutatied Cum Laude with Decoration for both specialisms. Then he continued studying at the Hochschule für Musik in Köln with Marcus Creed. At the moment he’s conducting the vocal ensemble of the Royal Conservatory of The Hague and vocal ensemble The Gents. With this all-male ensemble he won many prizes on international festivals and he made recordings for the label Channel Classics. In november 2003 the ensemble received the Kersjes-van de Groenekanprize.
In the year 2000 he was assistentconductor of the Netherlands Radio Choir Hilversum, after which he was invited to work as guestconductor with this ensemble. Nowadays he’s a regular guest with the professional choirs in Europe: he works on a regular basis with choirs such as the Netherlands Chamber Choir, Capella Amsterdam, Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, SWR-Vokalensemble, Swedish Radio Choir and the Finnish Radio Choir. In October 2003 he won the first prize at the Eric Ericson Award in Stockholm, an international competition for conductors.
Future engagements also include working with orchestras like the North Netherlands Philharmonic and the Bochumer Sinfoniker.
With the Kersjes-van de Groenkanprize for orchestralconductors, that he was awarded in 2002, he will study orchestral conducting at the Royal Conservatory in Stockholm with professor Jorma Panula.
