Peter Evans

Born in New York in 1981, Peter Evans has since the early 2000s pursued a career that sits at the crossroads of avant-garde jazz, free improvisation, and contemporary music. Trained at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, he moved to New York in 2003 and quickly established himself in a scene where free jazz, chamber music writing, and sonic experimentation intersect. A trumpeter with a broad, expansive technique, Evans works both as a solo artist and in small ensembles, and he was long a member of Mostly Other People Do the Killing until 2015. Among his early discographic landmarks are More Is More (2006) and The Peter Evans Quartet (2007), followed by Nature/Culture (2009), Ghosts with Carlos Homs (2011), Event Horizon with Sam Pluta (2014), Lifeblood (2016), and The Veil (2018). His activity also includes collaborations with Evan Parker, Nate Wooley, Mary Halvorson, Agustí Fernández, Mats Gustafsson, and the Amok Amor quartet founded in 2014 with Wanja Slavin, Petter Eldh, and Christian Lillinger. Alongside projects tied to improvisation, Evans also plays with contemporary-music ensembles such as the International Contemporary Ensemble and Alarm Will Sound, illuminating an aesthetic where virtuosity, timbre exploration, and formal construction circulate between composition and spontaneous performance.