About the Performer
Peter Godart was born in 1992 in the great state of NJ and has been playing piano and organ since he was 8 years old. At age 13, he was featured on an episode of NPR's Pipedreams program titled "Rooting for the Youngsters", in which he performed Bach organ works live from the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Interlochen, Michigan. That performance, however, was largely his swan song as a classical musician, and in the years since, his musical journey has led him down a path of jazz, funk, and hip-hop, with the occasional Prokoviev-Ellington hybrid piano sonata thrown in. In high school, Peter studied jazz piano under acclaimed Latin-jazz pianist Bill O'Connell, and was inducted into various jazz big bands at the regional, state, and all-eastern levels. He then went on to earn S.B. degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering from MIT in 2015. During this time, he continued his music education at Berklee and the New England Conservatory as an Emerson Fellow. His mentors from this time include Ran Blake, John Harbison, and Fred Harris. As an undergrad, he also contributed numerous original compositions and arrangements to the MIT festival jazz ensemble and vocal jazz ensemble, and he led several small jazz and funk bands that performed extensively in the Boston area. For his contributions to music at MIT, Peter was awarded the 2015 Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts. Off-campus, Peter was also featured in numerous concerts and ensembles at the New England Conservatory, including a group that traveled to Oman to perform for members of the Omani royal family. Since graduating, Peter worked as a research scientist and project manager at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory for two years before returning to MIT, where he is now a PhD candidate developing technologies for generating electricity and potable water sustainably in the Anthropocene. Peter is presently a Nord Artist and continues to perform as a pianist and compose extensively under the sage guidance of John Harbison.
Photo courtesy of Peter Godart
