Spirit, the 2024 release by Peter Calandra, is an album of beautiful piano based compositions. The 13 tracks on the album contain 10 original pieces composed by Peter along with 3 arrangements of early 1970’s songs Calandra played as a teen in bands. The music ranges from sweet folk-like solo piano melodies to spacious, soulful piano accompanied by deeply ambient synthesizer washes and lyrical ballads. Quiet music for a loud world.
Kathy Parsons (mainlypiano.com 12/13/2023): “Peter is an artist who is very comfortable in a wide range of music genres, and if I had to put this piece into a category, it would likely be ambient, but like so much of Peter’s music, it really defies classification and is simply a beautiful piano solo by Peter Calandra and one of my favorites for the year. Very highly recommended!”
Peter Calandra is an award winning, prolific composer and keyboard player whose solo albums are wonderfully diverse, spanning world music, jazz, contemporary jazz, new age, pop, and neo-classical. Three of his recent albums of original music — First Light (2015), The Road Home (2017) and Carpe Noctem (2018) were nominated for ZMR Awards.
As a Film & TV composer, Calandra scored over 100 films and wrote over 2000 compositions for television. He has composed music for every major television network including the FIFA World Cup Theme for FOX Sports, the Special Olympics World Games and Invictus Games Theme for ESPN, as well as writing music for the Kennedy Center Honors on CBS from 2015 thru 2020.
Calandra has been immersed in the New York City music scene for most of his life. As a keyboard player he performed in the Broadway productions of Miss Saigon, The Lion King, Les Miserables, The Phantom Of The Opera, and Little Shop Of Horrors. He has also performed with the Radio City Music Hall Orchestra, NY Pops Orchestra, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Don Cherry, Aretha Franklin, Allen Ginsberg, Annie Golden, Donna McKechnie, Lillianne Montevecchi, and he spent 16 years as the keyboard player in the NYC-based Climax Band, the creative vehicle for artist and musician Larry Rivers.