Peggy Pearson

Peggy Pearson is a winner of the Pope Foundation Award for Outstanding Accomplishment in Music. She gave her New York debut with soprano Dawn Upshaw in 1995, a program featuring the premiere of John Harbison’s Chorale Cantata which was written specifically for them. She has performed solo, chamber and orchestral music throughout the U.S. and abroad. A member of the Bach Aria Group, Ms. Pearson is also solo oboist with the Emmanuel Chamber Orchestra, an organization that has performed the complete cycle of sacred cantatas by J.S. Bach. She is featured on the recording of Bach cantatas by Emmanuel Music with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. Ms. Pearson is the director emerita of, and oboist with the Winsor Music Chamber Series. She is also a founding member of La Fenice. Ms. Pearson has toured internationally and recorded extensively with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and has appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra as principal oboist, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and Musicians from Marlboro. She was principal oboist of the Boston Philharmonic from 2010 to 2015. Ms. Pearson has been an active exponent of contemporary music. She was a fellow of the Radcliffe Institute in contemporary music, and has premiered numerous works, many of which were written specifically for her. She is featured on a recording of John Harbison’s music entitled First Light, with Dawn Upshaw and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. As director of Winsor Music, Inc., Ms. Pearson organized the Winsor Music Consortium, a project to commission works for oboe, and has commissioned and premiered 30 works on her chamber music series. She was a founding member of the Emmanuel Wind Quintet, winner of the 1981 Naumburg Award, which collaborated with the Guild of Composers. Ms. Pearson has been on the faculties at Boston Conservatory, MIT (Emerson Scholars Program), Songfest, The Tanglewood Music Center (Bach Institute), the Conservatory of Music (University of Cincinnati), Wellesley College, the Composers Conference at Wellesley College and the Longy School of Music. She has been a BCMS member musician since 2016.