Peter Cernuska

My name is Peter Cernuska. I was born in Slovakia in 1978 and lived in Austria since 1981. My parents were both playing in the same band, and I seem to have inherited a love for music from them. It was not until age 12 that I started developing a keen interest in performing and creating music myself, realizing that this is what I want to do all my life. Being an enthusiastic self-educator I started teaching myself how to play the piano.

During the next few years I kept practicing for hours every day, listened to huge amounts of music and developed basic fundaments in piano technique. At that time my first efforts in composition started. The failures of these days led me to the realization that I needed to get a strong theoretical background if I wanted to keep on improving my skills. Thorough studies of the music of such greats as Tchaikovsky, Rymsky-Korsakov, Debussy, Berlioz, Ravel and other composers, as well as the lecture of many books on harmony, counterpoint, musical forms, orchestration and techniques of film-music helped to increase my theoretical and practical knowledge.

Having worked my way through most of the literature used in musical study-branches I felt confident in deeply studying more modern compositions and Jazz harmony. My fascination in modern composers kept growing since then: First Wagner, Mahler, Richard Strauss, Holst, Stravinsky and later John Adams, Philip Glass, Takemitsu, Penderecki and way too many more to mention all of then. Their very individual and peculiar methods of creating music never cease to peak my interest. My main focus will always remain on movie music, an so I did my best to study the works of modern and classic movie composers like Hermann, Korngold, Steiner, Salter, Goldsmith as well as John Williams (of course!) and many others… Whenever I have the possibility to purchase a printed score of one of those composers, I can't resist buying and deriving exquisite joy from analysing and studying it.

During the next years I also kept incorporating modern technologies into my music-creation process. Being a pen-and-paper composer, this was quite a challenge. Nowadays my style incorporates many aspects ranging from classic orchestral to modern electronic sound scapes. Nearly everything I know today about music I either taught myself through trial and error or learned from the books I purchased. While some may regard this as a disadvantage, I consider it as a chance to develop my own musical style which attempts to build on classical foundations and expand them with all the wonderful possibilities that today's technology offers.

If you are interested in some cooperation, need music for a project or are interested in performing a concert piece then please get in contact right now! Thank you for taking time to read all this!