Peter James Leonard Klatzow is a South African pianist and composer. He is an emeritus professor of composition at the University of Cape Town and was the director of the College of Music.

Peter Klatzow

Klatzow traveled to London in 1964 to study for a year at the Royal College of Music after receiving a composition grant from the South African Music Rights Organisation, which allowed him to study at the (RCM) in London. Gordon Jacob (orchestration), Kathleen Long (piano), and Bernard Stevens (composition) were among his professors. While at school, he earned several composition awards. He later studied in Italy and then in Paris with Nadia Boulanger.

Klatzow returned to South Africa in 1966, where he worked as a music producer for the SABC in Johannesburg. He was hired to the South African College of Music in Cape Town in 1973, where he later became a composition professor and director.

Music

Klatzow has composed choral works, including litugical pieces, orchestral works, and ballet music.

• Dances of Earth and Fire (1988)
• Chamber concerto for 7 (1979)
• “Inyanga: marimba solo” (2007)
• Hamlet: The Ballet (1991)
• Ach, Bach: for Organ (1987)
• Six Concert Etudes for Marimba
• Music for 3 Paintings by Irma Stern
• Mass
• We, who are stars
• Sonata for cello and piano
• Dances of Earth and Fire
• Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis

Recordings

• Fantasy on Japanese Woodprints, Op. 211 (1990) (Alan Hovhaness, Peter Klatzow, Frank Nuyts)
• A Programme of Piano Music from South Africa (Arnold Van Wyk, Peter Klatzow, Roelof Temmingh, David Kosviner, Jill Richards)
• Towards the light – a selection of choral works recorded in Oxford by the Commotio choir, under the direction of Matthew Berry.

Books

• Composers in South Africa Today. Oxford University Press. 1987. ISBN 978-0-19-570431-0.

• Smith 2004.
• Heagney 2013