Peter Knudsen

About Peter Knudsen

Peter Knudsen mainly teaches piano, improvisation and ensemble playing, as well as courses related to the degree project within the Bachelor of Arts in Musical Performance. He has extensive experience of teaching piano and improvisation at all levels of education, in Swedish or English, and has participated in a teacher exchange (Linnaeus-Palme) with the Universities of UNIRIO in Rio de Janeiro and UNB in Brasília in 2014-2018, teaching mainly in Portuguese.

Knudsen holds a Master of Education in Music from the University of Gothenburg (2007) and a Master in Music (jazz) from the Royal College of Music in Stockholm (2013). In the spring of 2025, he is finishing a PhD in Artistic research at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).

Knudsen's research revolves around on improvisation in relation to 20th-century classical music – which is the theme for his dissertation Expanding horizons - improvisational explorations of 20th-century classical music – as well as the interaction between musical and pedagogical practices. Knudsen has also been involved in research projects exploring the intersection between music performance and artificial intelligence, through the research network Cross-disciplinary Research on Effectual Anticipation (CREA).

As a pianist and composer, Knudsen has released six albums under his own name, often at the intersection of jazz and Western art music. These include trio interpretations of Debussy and Ravel (2008), quartet versions of National Romantic composer Wilhelm Peterson-Berger (2013), reimagined versions of Amy Beach, Erzsébet Szőnyi, and Ruth Crawford Seeger (2024), besides his original compositions for the octet Peter Knudsen Eight (2012) and the Stockholm Jazz Orchestra (2019). In 2018, Knudsen started a duo with classical guitarist David Härenstam, a collaboration that led to the critically acclaimed album All in Twilight (2023), a meeting of classical guitar and jazz piano with repertoire ranging from Japanese art music to Swedish folk music.

Knudsen also has extensive experience of working as a freelance musician and collaborator in a wide range of genres; from jazz, pop, classical music, and musical theatre, to fusion and world music. He has been awarded the Royal Academy of Music's national scholarship for jazz musicians and the Ingvar Johansson Memorial Scholarship.

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