Peter Hilliard

Peter Hilliard is the composer of ten operas, four musicals, and numerous other works with librettist Matthew Boresi, including The Filthy Habit, a finalist in the National Opera Association chamber opera competition, which has received 11 productions. It was the first opera ever presented in the Chicago Fringe Festival and was the subject of an Emmy nominated public television feature in Minnesota. His latest opera Circe on Superior premiered in Minnesota in the Fall of 2024.  The Last American Hammer, a bluegrass opera,  has been produced at Urban Arias, Pittsburgh Opera, the University of Illinois, and Opera Grand Rapids. His opera Blue Viola has had productions at Urban Arias, Lyric Opera of The North and Opera Memphis. He is currently writing a new musical in collaboration with Boresi, along with Julie and Nathan Gunn.

Also an active orchestral and choral composer, Hilliard has music directed on both coasts and Off Broadway. He has conducted several productions with the International Gilbert and Sullivan festival in the UK, where he was named best music director in 2024. His performing edition of Victor Herbert’s 1911 Opera Natoma, crafted using the original parts at the Library of Congress was heard in a full reading in New York in 2014 for the first time in over 80 years.

Hilliard is a professor and resident music director at Villanova University and the music director of the Abington Choral Club. He holds degrees in Composition from the San Francisco Conservatory, where he was the 2020 Hoefer Prize, and in Musical Theatre Writing from NYU.