PETER MINTUN

Peter Mintun began a career in music when he taught himself to play the piano by ear at the age of three. There exist photographs of him from that period seated at the family piano poised to play, proving he was a musician as well as showman, knowing exactly when to seize the perfect photo opportunity. Since then he has played everywhere, been photographed by everyone, and has become one of today's most sought-after and respected society pianists.

Born into a musical household in Berkeley, California, one of four children, he grew up playing for parties, musical shows, ballroom dancing schools, and silent films at museums and colleges. Early on, his leanings to the music of the 1920s and '30s caused him to reject the fashion of his contemporary time and to develop into one of today's leading interpreters of popular music written between the two World Wars - those vintage melodies with such classic style that they, in Mintun's words, "transcend time."

For more than twenty years now, Peter Mintun has performed solo, with symphony orchestras, with his own society orchestra, and entertained royalty, film and stage stars, heads of industry and composers themselves.

Over the past quarter century Peter Mintun's piano playing has graced such rooms as L'Etoile in the Huntington Hotel, Masons in the Fairmont, the Madison Room of the New York Palace and Bemelmans Bar at The Carlyle.

Peter Mintun has recorded multiple pressings of popular music of the 1920s and '30s: Deep Purple, Grand Piano and Piano at the Paramount and are all on the Premier label. For other record producers he has written "liner notes" about vintage music. His first vocal CD, "Yours for a Song - Here's to the Ladies" was released in May 1999.

Concerts have been a part of Peter Mintun's schedule since the early 1970s. A sold-out concert at Oakland's Paramount Theater with organist Jim Roseveare led to repeat performances. In New York, he has appeared at the National Arts Club, Alice Tully Hall and The Town Hall. In March of 1998, he was invited by the Library of Congress to present a lecture-concert about composer Dana Suesse as part of a 4-day symposium, The Gershwins and Their World.

Peter Mintun has also appeared on television and radio. Type-cast as a piano player, he has been seen nationally in "The Letter" with Lee Remick (ABC) and in Gene Reynolds' Heartbeat (ABC). In 1996 he was profiled on Terry Gross' "Fresh Air" program on National Public Radio. This interview has been re-broadcast nationally several times. A subsequent interview/concert was heard on "Fresh Air" in May 1999.

In October of 1995, Peter Mintun began an engagement at Bemelmans Bar in the Carlyle Hotel which lasted for seven years. That month he was chosen to be the first cabaret performer profiled in the premiere issue of Time Out New York. Bemelmans Bar was selected by New York Magazine as the Best Piano Bar in New York in their April 1996 "Best of the Best" issue. An authority on composer Dana Suesse (1909-1987), Mintun was featured in the one-hour documentary entitled "Yours For A Song: The Women of Tin Pan Alley", aired on PBS in 1999 and now available on VHS and DVD.