Every time Peter Neuendorffer plays the piano, the world changes. He writes songs too, magical things, and performs them to our wonder. Everything musical he does seems to carry not only a deep emotional resonance, instantly recognizable to us all, but also an irresistible appeal straight up from the roots, across centuries.

Some of this is due to Peter’s history. Since he picked out tunes on a church piano when he was seven, he has pursued harmony and dissonance and melody all across the synesthetic spectrum. At the New England Conservatory, he would wander the halls looking for unlocked rooms with pianos in them, or just stand still and savor the cacophony of practice.

He knows music. All sorts of big territories are there—Bach, Coltrane, Leonard Bernstein, Kurt Weill, Lennon/McCartney, Gershwin, Dylan, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Randy Newman, to list a few—as well as the blues, cabaret, American gospel, “folk” ballads. He will play us a bit of Nino Rota’s music from a Fellini film, and then surprise us with Jefferson Airplane. And then he’ll “improvise”—in quotes because it’s a miracle.

When he sings his own songs—with titles like “Sulwar” or “Termilee,” about things like television, Mars, freedom, credit cards, isolation—he evokes subtle and mysterious life experiences like a filmmaker or novelist would. He has even written an entire musical show.

--- Terence Hegarty