Tom Peters, instructor at the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music at Long Beach State, released his ambient music album “Lamentations” on Friday.
“Lamentations” features nine original tracks. According to a press release, the album is about inviting listeners to process the year 2020.
“More than anything, I hope people like it and respond to it,” Peters said via email. “When I set out to write ‘Lamentations,’ I wanted to create something that filled a need, specifically something that would help people process the difficult emotions that events of the past year have generated. Composer Paul Hindemith called it Gebrauchsmusik, or ‘needed music’ in the 1930s. I suppose it’s a musical version of functional art.”
Peters is part of the strings faculty in Bob Cole and plays the double bass. He was nominated in 2014 for a Grammy Award for Best Small Ensemble Performance for his work in “The Ten Thousand Things,” inspired by recordings of composer John Cage.
While Peters has also composed scores for silent films and performs “contemporary avant-garde classical music,” “Lamentations” is his second album of ambient music, and Peters said that creating a concept album of ambient music was something that was of interest to him as early as his time in college.
According to Peters, “Lamentations” took about four months from its initial conception to its finished product.
“I’ve written some of my best music when there’s a short timeframe because there’s a lot less time for me to stand in my own way,” Peters said. “I think one of the secrets to success in life is learning to remove self-imposed barriers. And to be honest, that’s what I teach my double bass students at CSULB to do.”
“Lamentations” will be available to stream or purchase on Amazon, Apple Music and more.