Volume 5 Issue 1 - September 1999

• month's cover: Nick

• month's cover: Nick Peros Interviewed by Allan Pulker I met Nick Peros last July at Mixmeister Recording Studios in Scarborough, the occasion: cellist, Simon Fryer recording Yannis Xenakis' Kottos for solo cello. I found Peros sitting at the control panel beside engineer and Mixmeister owner, Jim Motgan, with Fryer and cello on the other side of a sound-proof window. The conversation, via intercom, went like this: Peros: "You know at that row of eighth notes from the B-flat to the C there's a little swoop to it?" Fryer: "I rather liked it." Peros: "I just thought you might like to know. Do you want to hear it?'' Fryer: "Yes". As the passage in question is played back, Nick comments "You need another mind-set for this music. Think of it as sound effects and appreciate the performer!" He has a point. The difficulty of the music i~ staggering. It is full of double and triple stops and sounds that most of us would not even have imagined a cello capable of producing. The session is laborious, recording short sections several times before going on. Nick keeps spirits high with salvoes of welltimed banter. "Shall I tum on the strobe light?" he probes Fryer for a laugh and almost gets one. "You know that machine that adjusts the pitch," replies Fryer, "does it do, tempo as well?" They're not serious and at the same time they are. PER OS I PRODUCER It is obvious that Nick Peros loves his work as a producer. "Even if I had million," he told me later, "I would still be doing what I do to make a living. It's great, man, it's really great: one, it's music and two, it's helping other people! It's perfect! People really feel I care. I go the extra mile without being asked. It's their dream, it's sacred. There's no compromise, you bend over backwards for them." He started Peros Music in 1991 but it was not until 1997, that he began to devote himself to it full-time. He had seen artists taken advantage of because of their lack of knowledge. Frequently they would spend far more money than they needed to, some even convinced that spending a lot of money meant they . were in the big leagues. Often the product for which they had overpaid was little better than a good demo CD. He saw a need for a onestop recording business that would do everything - recording and editing, artwork, packaging and distribution. His years of employment provided the experience and contacts needed to produce a top quality CD. The idea caught on right away with individual musicians who needed exactly the service he offered and who, like Simon Fryer, a member of the TSO, did not have the time to do it all themselves. PEROS, COMPOSER But Peros is much more than a consummate record producer. He is also an accomplished composer, with high artistic aspirations and many works to his credit. His parents, who immigrated from Croatia around 1960, were not especially musical, but he says "I've been a musician all my life - for as long as I can remember. It's my nature. When I was 5-6 years old I would hear music on TV and change it in my mind. Usually I liked my version better than the original." At age six he got his first guitar, and really got going on it at about age eleven. For about four years he worked at the guitar 6 to 7 hours a day learning to do what he heard on record and on the radio. Jimi Hendrix, whom he calls the greatest rock guitarist of all time, was a particularly strong influence from this period. By his mid teens he was becoming interested in composition, wanting to go beyond what had been already done, and when he was eighteen he wrote a guitar symphony. "I was self-taught. My CLASSlCALQ~ TORONTO CLASSICAL I ROG .R A M GUIDE USTRII. ONTARIO MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY 5:~ am The Morning Show Bill Anderson and David Franco 10 am Morning Concert KtmSirajtqn Noon fo~ew$• Packclge 12:15 pm Lunc~~e ~··ptrt Arlene~ws ~~ai~Sp~g Catherine~ 3 -pm Potpourri J;try 7pm SATURDAY 5:30am The Saturday Morning Show Bill Anderson and David Franco 1~:10 pm Luncheon Date Arlene Meadows 1 pm Saturday Supersounds Kerry Slratton and John van Oriel 5pm Anything Goes Arlene Meadows 7pm Give My Regards to Broadway John van Drlel 8pm Your$(1turday Nig~ FavouritE!~ l#ic;h~ .£(1J$ SUNDAY 5:30am Gloria Richard Gale 9am Music for Sunday John van Oriel and Kerry Stratton 12:10 pm Luncheon Date Arlene Meadows 1 pm Music for Sunday John van Oriel and Kerry Stratton 5:05pm Sinfonia Alexa Petrenko 7:00pm Canadian Showcase Terry Campbell 8pm Concert in the Park David Craig 9pm Sunday Night at the Opera Catherine Belyea

teachers were the guys on the albums. I learned it all by ear - that way you're forced to understand." Once learned that way, he says, you never forget. He learned literally hundreds of songs, by absorbing the patterns of chord progression. But his first formal musical instruction was with Dr. Anthony Dawson at the RCM from 1987 to 1989, which is all it took to earn the A.R.C.T. in theory and composition, while holding down a full-time job. Even more incredible, from 1990 to 1993 he did nothing but compose. Applying the same seemingly inexhaustible resourcefulness to the "money problem" as he had brought to mastering the art of music, he sought out and managed to find sponsorship to enable him to apply himself full-time to his chosen field of work .. He met some truly helpful and inspirational people like philanthropist and Renaissance man, Wilbur Sullivan, ''who not only supported but also understood what I was doing" and composer, David Walden. He also did a lot of composing, including a giant symphony, written for choir and orchestra, which is over an hour long. In 1993 he took a job as national sales manager of IMD (International Music Distribution). This was the perfect preparation for running his own record company, Peros Music Inc. Peros, continues .... WORLD CLASS DIGITAL RECORDING CD MASTERING & MANUFACTURING . ... the very essence of fidelity." Alan Lofft, Sound and Vision · 4ree, informative · re, please call 10-8248 TURKEY! .JJi:~loricaf f:xpforalion ~pt/CJct~~