Peter Alexander Thoegersen
Peter Alexander Thoegersen was born in Los Angeles, USA, in 1967. He earned his doctorate in music composition from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, in 2012. He wrote his thesis on polytempic polymicrotonality, previously untouched as a stylistic genre, with only a single precursor in the literature, Charles Ives’s Universe Symphony (1915). Polytempic polymicrotonality offers expansive potential for the re-emergence of pitch and rhythm in contrast to extended technique noise gestures prevalent today. Thoegersen, a drummer, extrapolates rhythms and explores polytempo and four-way independence, wherein each independent “limb” becomes its own part, or voice, with its own tempo, and ultimately, its own microtonal system—approaching a radical new polyphony not yet practiced in musical literature. Thoegersen has had his works premiered in Europe, Australia, and the United States. His eponymous CD Three Pieces in Polytempic Polymicrotonality was released by New World Records in 2019, which has had nine reviews and has made to three top ten lists for 2019’s best CDs. Recently his song cycle Facebook: What’s On Your Mind? was released on Flea Records in the April of 2021.