Biography
SHORT
Composer and writer Gemma Peacocke’s music blurs genres, weaving together chamber music, art-pop, electronic soundscapes, and orchestral power into something altogether her own. Her work often explores identity, haunting, folklore, and feminism, bringing together contemporary classical language with electronics and experimental textures.
Peacocke’s music has been championed by Third Coast Percussion, ~Nois, eighth blackbird, Bang on a Can, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Auckland Philharmonia, the Christchurch Symphony, percussionists Claire Edwardes and Megan Arns, piano duo HOCKET, PUBLIQuartet, Rubiks Collective, STROMA, and Alarm Will Sound.
Peacocke’s major works include Waves & Lines, a song cycle based on Afghan landays for soprano Eliza Bagg, White Horses, co-commissioned by the Auckland Philharmonia and Christchurch Symphony; The Threshold We Cross with Closed Eyes, commissioned and premiered by Third Coast Percussion at the Library of Congress; and Don’t You Trust Me?, written for brass and percussion and commissioned by the Auckland Philharmonia.
An adjunct faculty member at NYU Steinhardt, Peacocke holds degrees from NYU Steinhardt, Victoria University of Wellington, and the New Zealand School of Music, and received a Ph.D. in composition and interdisciplinary humanities from Princeton University. A voting member of the Recording Academy (GRAMMYs), she lives with her family in an old farmhouse in a tiny town in central New Jersey. She also spends as much time as possible back home in Aotearoa.
LONG
Composer and writer Gemma Peacocke’s music blurs genres, weaving together chamber music, art-pop, electronic soundscapes, and orchestral power into something altogether her own. Her work often explores identity, haunting, folklore, and feminism, bringing together contemporary classical language with electronics and experimental textures.
Her debut album Waves & Lines, released on New Amsterdam Records in 2019, sets the poetry of Afghan women from I Am the Beggar of the World, Pulitzer Prize winner Eliza Griswold’s collection. The song cycle has been performed at Roulette Intermedium and National Sawdust in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the Melbourne Recital Centre in Australia, and as part of the Canberra International Music Festival and Bang on a Can’s Long Play festival at MASS MoCA.
Peacocke’s music has been championed by Third Coast Percussion, ~Nois, eighth blackbird, Bang on a Can, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Auckland Philharmonia, the Christchurch Symphony, percussionists Claire Edwardes and Megan Arns, piano duo HOCKET, PUBLIQuartet, Rubiks Collective, STROMA, and Alarm Will Sound.
As a founding member of the Kinds of Kings collective – praised by The New Yorker as “distinguished young creators who work in diverse styles” – Peacocke is committed to amplifying under-heard voices in classical music. The group served as Artists-in-Residence at National Sawdust in 2019–20 and collaborated with the Cincinnati Symphony and Eighth Blackbird on Nine Mothers, a concerto that premiered in 2022. Their first album, Kinds of ~Nois, came out in 2024 on Bright Shiny Things.
Peacocke’s major works include White Horses, co-commissioned by the Auckland Philharmonia and Christchurch Symphony; The Threshold We Cross with Closed Eyes, commissioned and premiered by Third Coast Percussion at the Library of Congress; and Don’t You Trust Me?, written for brass and percussion and commissioned by the Auckland Philharmonia. The Rochester Philharmonic premiered All on Fire in 2020, and other highlights include A Strange Power about the lives of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and her step-sister Claire Clairmont premiered by Sputter Box, and Pacific, a choral epic created for Wellington’s Tudor Consort.
Her music also appears on a range of recordings, performed by artists such as the viola duo Tallā Rouge, Third Coast Percussion, ~Nois, violinist Adrienne Munden-Dixon, pianist Henry Wong-Doe, soprano Jenny Wollerman, cellist Lavena Johanson, saxophonist Jose Zayas Caban, and trumpeter Kate Amrine.
Peacocke is an adjunct faculty member at NYU Steinhardt. She holds degrees from NYU Steinhardt, Victoria University of Wellington, and the New Zealand School of Music, and received a Ph.D. in composition and interdisciplinary humanities from Princeton University. A voting member of the Recording Academy (GRAMMYs), she lives with her family in an old farmhouse in a tiny town in central New Jersey. She also spends as much time as possible back home in Aotearoa.