Called “a monster jazz piano player” by the late Jack Elliot, music director of the Grammy Awards, Peter Stoltzman has been a regular on the faculty of the Stanford Jazz Workshop since 1997. He has developed after-school programs to teach music fundamentals and improvisation to children, and led Young Audiences programs with his world music group, Samadhi. In 2009, Peter led the music component of Austin's “Leadership Enrichment through the Arts Program.”

Peter has performed at the Hollywood Bowl and Carnegie Hall, and concert halls around the globe, with luminaries such as Alex Acuna, Kazumi Watanabe, and Yosvanny Terry. Peter and his father, Richard Stoltzman, have been featured on WNYC, Sirius Satellite Radio, NPR, and CBS Sunday Morning.

Peter graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Jazz Performance from Berklee College of Music in 1999. After Berklee, Peter lived in New York City, where he recorded and performed with an eclectic variety of artists including drummer Deantoni Parks and Kudu, rapper Jah Dan and Noble Society, guitarist John Shannon and Waking Vision, and the American Music Award-winning funk band, The Bomb Squad.

Recent highlights include touring Japan and recording with drummer Steve Gadd, bassist Eddie Gomez and marimba virtuoso Mika Yoshida. Peter has two releases on Blue Canoe Records—with the jazz quintet, The New Five (2009), and the Ron Westray/Thomas Heflin project (2010). Peter has independently released a 3-CD package of all original music (a finalist for the 2005 Independent Music Awards), a solo piano CD and a CD of piano and clarinet repertoire with his father, Richard Stoltzman. His new trio record, “Walk the Path,” was released in October, 2009.