DR. PETER HARVEY

BUCKSPORT and HARTFORD, Conn. – Dr. Peter Harvey, tenor, conductor, composer and educator. Born April 10, 1945, in Bangor, he was the husband of Cindi (Coe) Harvey of Bloom-field; son of the late John W. and Agatha (Dyer) Harvey of Bucksport; brother of Jane (Harvey) Meade of Mashpee, Mass.; uncle and God father of Lisa Ford of Bucksport, died March 6, 2005, after a brave battle with non-Hodgkin’s. He was an entertainer from the age of four when he’d stand on the counter of Harry Page’s Hardware Store in Bucksport and sing. Then he appeared in local shows under the direction of Marion McKay in Bucksport. His notoriety soon branched into other Maine towns. In 1951, at age six, he entered and won first prize in The Queen City Talent Show under the direction of C. Everett Page of Bangor. This won him a trip to New York and an audition for The Ted Mack Amateur Hour. During his high school years, he had his own television show (“The Peter Harvey Show”) on station WABI in Bangor under the direction of George Gonyer. He earned a bachelor of science degree from Gorham State College in 1966. His undergraduate studies in conducting was under Gerald G. Chamberland and Jerry Bowder. He was entered into Who’s Who in America during his undergraduate years at Gorham. He became the director of Secondary Music in the Standish-Buxton Schools and taught music in Fort Kent for two years. He earned a masters degree at Hartt College in 1972 and went on to earn a doctor of musical arts from there in 1980. He was director of music for Hartford’s archdiocesan Cathedral of Saint Joseph from 1974 to 1989. He was conductor for the Hartt Summer Repertory Theater. He was music director of the Hartford Philharmonia Society Chorus. He was affiliated with the Theater Guild of Simsbury for a quarter of a century. He served a term with the Connecticut Commission on the Arts. He has appeared as a soloist with the Connecticut Opera Association, the Hartt College Opera Theater, the New Britain Opera Company, the Hartford Chorale, the Hartford Chamber Orchestra and the Hartford Symphony Pops Orchestra. In 1989, the Hartt School of Music named him Alumnus of the Year. He won both the Connecticut Opera auditions and the Metropolitan Opera New England Regional auditions. He was a conductor throughout the country including the Connecticut All-State Chorus in its 50th anniversary concert. In 1999, his “Home for Christmas, 1945” program for Connecticut Public Television and Radio (CPTV) won a regional emmy. He has sung the principal roles in all the standard lyric opera repertoire with companies throughout the Northeast and has appeared in or directed dozens of Broadway shows including “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Kismet,” “Oklahoma,” and “1776.” Some of his compositions include the music for his opera “John the Baptizer,” and “Mass in B-flat: Declare His Glory.” At the time of his death, he had just finished a setting of a poem by Wallace Stevens for Women’s voices. He was a professor of Music at Hartford College for Women of the University of Hartford and a Dean of Faculty at the Hartford Conservatory of Music. He toured nationally with a one man show of opera and musical theater highlights and was best known for his playful spoofs on opera and his World War II shows. The family will receive friends 6-8 p.m. Wednesday, March 9, at the Carmon Funeral Home, 807 Bloomfield Avenue, Windsor, Conn. A Mass of Christian Burial will be held 10 a.m. Thursday, March 10, at the Sacred Heart Church, 26 Wintonbury Avenue, Bloomfield, Conn. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Hartford Conservatory Scholarship Fund and/or the American Cancer Society: Memorial Dept., P.O. Box 1004, Meriden, CT 06450. A memorial service will be held in the spring in Bucksport, for friends and family there.