Peter Casey

Peter Casey is one of Australia’s most versatile musical directors, having established a career spanning the genres of musical theatre, arena presentations, symphonic concerts, orchestration, television and recording.

During the past years, Peter has been musical director for several major music theatre productions, including the 1991 Gordon Frost Organisation/Adelaide Festival Centre production of The King and I, Les Miserables, The Sound of Music, The Wizard of Oz, Chicago, Cabaret, Smokey Joe’s Cafe: The Songs of Leiber and Stoller, Topol’s Fiddler on the Roof, Stephen Sondheim’s Company, Monty Python’s Spamalot, Jekyll & Hyde, the Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals Evita, Cats, Aspects of Love, Song and Dance, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Jesus Christ Superstar, and The Production Company’s productions of Sunset Boulevard, The Pajama Game, 42nd Street, Mame, Crazy For You, The King and I (2010), Anything Goes and Kismet, and musical director for the Australian tours of Annie and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Peter was musical director for The New Mel Brooks Musical The Producers, for which he received a 2004 Green Room Award.  He has also received Green Room Award nominations for Sunset Boulevard, Mame, Monty Python’s Spamalot and Annie, and Helpmann Award nominations for The Producers and Company.

He was musical supervisor for Guys and Dolls, South Pacific, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, the 1998 Australian tour of Grease – The Arena Spectacular, the Big Top touring productions of Cats – Run Away To The Circus and Grease – The Mega Musical, the recent Australasian tour of A Chorus Line, and the 2013 Gordon Frost Organisation production of Grease.

In 1998, Peter was musical director for the acclaimed arena production The Main Event, starring Olivia Newton-John, Anthony Warlow and John Farnham, and in 1999 was associated with the Grand Opening of Fox Studios Australia in Sydney, as musical director for The Rodgers and Hammerstein Tribute, starring Shirley Jones and Hugh Jackman. He was musical director for Live Performance Australia’s inaugural 2001, 2002, 2005 and 2006 Helpmann Awards, which honour distinguished artistic achievement and excellence within the Australian arts and entertainment industry.

Through his passion for orchestration, Peter has worked extensively in South East Asia, co-composing and orchestrating several musical productions, operas and recordings in Singapore and Korea. He was co-composer and orchestrator for ACOM International’s epic Korean musical opera, The Last Empress, which toured to London, Los Angeles and New York, and ACOM’s productions of Arang and The Winter Wanderer, and was orchestrator for the musical drama Winter Sonata which toured Korea and Japan.

In 2005, he was orchestrator and conductor for Hyungsuk Kim’s score for the Korean film, Typhoon, which received nomination as Best Film at the 2006 43rd Daejong Film Awards Festival. In 2009, Peter was orchestrator for the Korean musical drama, Hero (Ahn Jung Geun), which toured Korea and was presented at the Lincoln Center, New York. Peter was honoured with the Best Orchestration Award for Hero at both the 4th Korea Musical Theatre Awards in June 2010, and the 16th Korea Musical Awards in October 2010.

Peter has been guest conductor and orchestrator for the West Australian Symphony, Adelaide Symphony and Queensland Symphony Orchestras.