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player ready...After more than eight years as a classical guitarist, Peter Swenson reached a crossroads: “Having a career in music was tough work, and although I was surviving, it wasn’t always artistically glamorous.”
So Swenson got an environmental engineering degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology; he now works in waste water management for the EPA. Swenson chose his day job not just as a means of financial support, but “because I feel very strongly about protecting the environment.”
It also allows him to pursue his passion for music on his terms. “I’m able to say `yes’ to the good musical opportunities and `no’ to the bad ones,” he says.
He adds: “Both jobs deal with science and have their own rigors, but there is an art to both of them because we wouldn’t have much work if you could just look up the answer to a question in a book.”
Swenson also plays the archlute and the theorbo, members of the lute family, with groups such as Music of the Baroque. “The theorbo stands out because it’s 7 feet tall,” he says. “It has the grace and beauty of the harp and a bit of the puckish quality of the banjo. There’s a freedom to playing these instruments because we get to improvise around the skeleton of what’s provided–similar to what a piano or guitar do in a jazz ensemble.”
On Sunday, Swenson will play guitar and sing for the 25th reunion concert of the Irish group Jamie O’Reilly and the Rogues. The ensemble has often performed to promote peace and social justice; this show benefits the African Refugee Resettlement Committee of Chicago. As for the music, “I love the lunacy of the group,” Swenson says.
“Peter was our primary music arranger, our guru,” says Jamie O’Reilly, “and he has the kind of warm James-Taylorish pop voice that had [us] girls in Crystal Lake, our home town, swooning.”
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Jamie O’Reilly and the Rogues 25th Reunion Concert, 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Irish American Heritage Center, 4626 N. Knox Ave. $15-$20, 312-458-0822.