Bio
As a 4th generation musician Erik-Peter Mortensen (aka Erik or EP) started singing professionally since the age of 9, first at the Metropolitan & New York City Opera Children's Choruses, and then in many professional choirs through the present (most recently with the Schola of St. Agnes Church, in midtown Manhattan. Having naturally developed a passionate love for Early, Baroque, and Classical music, he wishes to make the beauty of these earlier styles appeal to much wider audiences, either through fusing it with other musical styles, creating new styles, or promulgating it through his own music scoring for films, video games, and other multimedia formats. EP holds a Music B.A. from Columbia University, NY and a Master Certificate for Orchestration for FIlm and TV from Berklee Music, MA.
While attending St. Hilda's and St. Hugh's High School in New York, he was a bass and founding member of its madrigal ensemble, The Not-Ready-for-Roylaty Singers (NRFRS), and performed in many concert programs and outside performances, developing a particular knowledge and passion for this style of singing. While subsequently enrolled at Columbia University, he founded the New York Madrigal Singers (NYMS) during his junior year. The ensemble performed dozens of times over the next 7 years, producing several CD's worth of recordings, and receiving two favorable reviews by Alan Kozin, music critic of The New York Times.
Also at Columbia, Erik-Peter studied "Renaissance Counterpoint" with David Rakowski, "Advanced Composition" with Jeff Nichols, and "Counterpoint in the style of J.S. Bach" with Severine Neff. Thus it's no coincidence that since his graduation in 1992 with a B.A. in music, Cum Laude, much of EP's orchestral and instrumental compositional styles have been greatly influenced by Bach, while his choral works remain greatly influenced by the High Renaissance masters. In 2015, he completed his "Master Certificate for Orchestration for Film & TV" at Berkleemusic.com, the online extension of Berklee College of Music with a 4.0 GPA.
Not only a performer, composer and conductor, Erik-Peter is also a professional audio engineer, and has created his own production company called "Papagena Productions" (in tribute to one of his favorite Mozart opera characters from "The Magic Flute"), of which "Cathedral Records" is its main independent label. The mission of Cathedral is to produce and release a broad range of old, new and hybrid works with a Classical Music influence.
Musical Style
Representing the experimental (he would call it 'multi-dimensional'!) end of the spectrum, Erik-Peter's masterful compositions, songs and recordings are typified by a hybrid writing style which combines Medieval and Renaissance modal synthesis with Baroque and Classical counterpoint and harmonic language, all suffused with Romantic passion, in order to create pieces of symphonic & sweeping orchestral impact.
If you imagine the epic film scores of composer John Williams, you're on the right track to imagining Erik-Peter's music-- however, to get all the way there, you also need to imagine all of the above becoming fused with bouncy pop, rock, folk, world and dance grooves and traditions.
Erik-Peter, or EP, is equally at home with each of these techniques and styles. His wide-ranging music shows us that he is just as capable of creating a strictly Baroque fugue on subjects as varied as the melodies of 'Mr. Softee' and 'Hey Jude', as he is in combining the varied stylistic elements of rock, Gregorian Chant, and classic Hollywood (with the occasional touch of flamenco guitar) as he has done in some of his more recent creations, such as his popular song 'Hero's Quest' and the film-score worthy 'Dragon Song'.
