Peter Paulsen

Conference Jazz Trio

Peter Paulsen is currently Assistant Professor of Double Bass/Jazz Studies at West Chester University and is an active member of the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, principal bass of the Allentown Symphony Orchestra and has been principal bass with the Spoleto Festival Orchestra in Spoleto, Italy. He is also busy as a free-lance jazz bassist in the tri-state area and performs regularly with his own quintet and trio as well as many of Philadelphia’s top jazz performers.

Mr. Paulsen is a member of the International Society of Bassists and an active composer of works for his instrument, receiving two prestigious Pennsylvania Council on the Arts composition grants and a residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Alberta, Canada. He released his first CD as a leader on R&L Records, “Three-Stranded Cord”, for jazz quintet, receiving national airplay and high reports on Jazzweek and CJM (college radio) charts. Mr. Paulsen’s CD release on Wahbo Records, “Tri-cycle”, for jazz trio features compositions that won him a third PCA composition grant. His activity and output as a composer was recognized by the PEW Charitable Trust, as a recipient of the PEW Fellowship in Music Composition for 2007, which has led to the CD release, Peter Paulsen “Change of Scenery” Sextet, also on Wahbo Records and followed with the release, “Goes Without Saying” Peter Paulsen Quintet on SquarePegWorks. Upon receiving an invitation from the Robert & Lina Thyll-Durr Foundation to participate in a two-week composition residency at Casa Zia Lina on the Isle of Elba, Italy, Mr. Paulsen began work on a new piece resulting in a new song cycle, “The Wild Iris,” a setting of three texts by Louise Gluck, written for his wife, mezzo-soprano Charlotte Paulsen.

 Mr. Paulsen is founder/director/bassist of TurksHeadKnot Contemporary Music Ensemble, having presented numerous premiers of commissioned works for the ensemble, recently premiered his newly composed “Songs of Late Summer”…settings of poems by Stanley Kunitz, Anne Sexton and Galway Kinnell, and this past season premiered a septet, “Shanghied Paisano” (string quintet, soprano saxophone and percussion) after ‘Americus” by Lawrence Furlinghetti and featuring the Dali Quartet. The most recent CD release, Peter Paulsen Trio “A Few Thoughts” on SquarePegWorks, is receiving international airplay and reviews.

Peter is an accomplished visual artist, drawing and painting whenever the time allows, as well as a master carpenter and in his “spare time” is restoring an early 19^th century farmhouse. The garden there is his therapist!!