Biography

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Peter F. Nostrand is an American composer who learned to play the piano at a young age but preferred composing to performing. His father, a clergyman, gave Peter the foundations to read and write music when Peter was five, skills which surprisingly returned once he retired as CEO of SunTrust Bank in 2006.

In 2008, he recorded a portion of his orchestral works with the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra in Prague. This led to performances by the Cleveland Pops and the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra.

His music spans a broad range of disciplines: from sweeping big screen romantic scores, to action movies to country, to cozy British murder mysteries and to classy romantic symphonic scores and inspiring piano concerti. His music, a critic said, will either make you cry, make you forget about stress or make you dance for joy.

In 2010, Peter won a Distinguished Composer Award from IBLA International and, in 2010 and 2011, the Excellence in Composition Award from the National Academy of Music, an organization that named Peter an Honorary Fellow of the Academy in 2011. In January 2013, his composition “Come Home” won the top Gold Award in the Instrumental Category of the 2012 Songwriters’ Association of Washington as well as the BMI Songwriters Award.

He holds a bachelor’s degree from Amherst College, a master’s degree from the University of Virginia and a Premier Degre from the University of Paris. He also attended the Ecole des Sciences Politiques in Paris and about to take a third term of music studies and tutoring at Oxford University.

Mr. Nostrand and his wife Nancy live in Virginia south of Washington and have six children and ten grandchildren.