Peter Slavov

Peter Slavov is a New York-based bassist, composer, session musician, arranger, and educator. Since he started performing professionally in the mid-1990s, Peter has performed at some of the most prestigious venues and festivals in more than 40 countries on 5 continents.

Born to the family of legendary Bulgarian drummer Peter Slavov Sr., Peter (sometimes credited as Petar) has been playing bass since the age of twelve.

While studying classical music at the Pipkov Music School in Sofia, Bulgaria, Peter discovered American jazz and soon after became the busiest bassist on the scene in Bulgaria, playing with the country’s finest musicians and touring around Europe.

In 1998 Peter received a scholarship from Boston’s famed Berklee College of Music, and in 1999 moved to Boston to attend Berklee. In 2001, he was awarded the Berklee Bass Department’s John Neves Memorial Scholarship Award for Outstanding Musicianship, as well as a full scholarship.

Since graduating from Berklee in 2002, Peter Slavov has performed and/or recorded with world-renowned artists, such as Joe Lovano, Quincy Jones, George Garzone, Danilo Perez, Chucho Valdes, Kevin Mahogany, Simon Shaheen and Elio Villafranca, among many others.

Peter is a member of Grammy award-winning saxophonist Joe Lovano’s Classic Quartet, as well as with Lovano’s Us Five band. In 2012, Us Five received the Award for Best Small Group by the Jazz Journalists Association of America.

Peter Slavov is also featured on the most recent album by Joe Lovano and Us Five - "Cross Culture", which was released on the historic Blue Note label.

Peter has performed with legendary producer/arranger/composer Quincy Jones’ Global Gumbo Project. Peter has also recorded for Jones. He is featured on Alfredo Rodriguez’ critically-acclaimed, GRAMMY-nominated album The Invasion Parade(released in 2014), which Quincy Jones produced.

Peter is a co-leader of the New York-based music collective Open Ended. Their eponymous debut album of all-original music was released in December of 2012. He is also a member of child prodigy Emily Bear’s Trio, and of the critically acclaimed Uri Gurvich Quartet.

In the spring of 2013, Peter was commissioned to write a piece for jazz trio and a string orchestra. The piece was performed in July 2013 at the Festival Complex in Varna, Bulgaria as part of the Varna Summer Music Festival.

Peter has performed at some of the most prestigious festivals around the world, including:

The Monterey Jazz Festival, The Detroit Jazz Festival, Festival de Jazz de Montreal, The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, The North Sea Jazz Festival (Holland), Umbria Jazz Festival (Italy), Jazz a Juan(France), Paris Jazz Festival, Dubai Jazz Festival (UAE), Istanbul Jazz Festival (Turkey), The Israel Festival (Israel) and many more.

Peter has also performed at numerous legendary performance venues, such as:

Jazz at Lincoln Center (New York City), Town Hall(NYC),The Village Vanguard (New York City),Birdland (New York City), Blue Note (New York, Milan, Tokyo, Beijing and Nagoya), The Fox Theater (Atlanta), Severance Hall (Cleveland), MGM Grand (Las Vegas),The Detroit Institute of Art (Detroit), Olympia Hall (Paris), Massey Hall (Toronto),The Jerusalem Theater (Jerusalem), Bulgaria Hall (Sofia), Chang Kai Shek National Theater (Taipei),Bimhuis (Amsterdam), Centro Nacional de las Artes (Mexico City),The Jazz Standard (New York City),Yoshi’s (San Francisco), Minton’s Playhouse (New York City), Dakota (Minneapolis), New Morning (Paris), La Cigale (Paris), Duc Des Lombards (Paris), Zappa (Tel Aviv) and countless more.

He has been featured on Fox 5 New York, WBGO - NPR Newark, WGBH-NPR Boston, CBC(Canada), PBS, TF1(France), Mezzo(France), Radio France Internationale, WERS - Boston, Jazz FM(Bulgaria), BR(Germany), Azteca TV(Mexico),IMER (Mexico), Bulgarian National Television and the Bulgarian National Radio.

Awards

Best Composition, 1997 Plovdiv International Jazz Festival John Neves Award, 2001 Berklee