Peter Askim Active as a bassist, composer, and conductor, Peter Askim is a member of the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra and on the faculty of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where he directs the Contemporary Music Ensemble and teaches theory and composition. He has received numerous honors for his compositions, including Meet the Composer, Inc. and ASCAP awards and commissions from the International Society of Bassists, the Yale Symphony Orchestra, the Portland Chamber Music Festival and the Honolulu Symphony. His compositions have been performed at the Aspen, Bowdoin, Music At the Anthology, June in Buffalo and Bang On A Can festivals, and have been broadcast on Hawaii Public Radio. His Vital Signs for solo bass is published in Liben's Family Album 2, and his Edge and Eight Solitudes are published by Discordia Music. Recently, he won the 2002 International Society of Bassists Composition Competition for Eight Solitudes and presented a recital of his works at the 2003 ISB Convention. He is currently writing a work for bass and orchestra to be premiered in the spring of 2005. Mr. Askim has served as Music Director of the Branford Chamber Orchestra and makes frequent guest conducting appearances, recently leading the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra in a reading of new works. He is active in music education from the preschool to graduate levels, performing his one man show "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" for thousands of schoolchildren as part of the Honolulu Symphony's education program and as part of his Residency at the Portland Chamber Music Festival. He has also received critical praise as a jazz artist in such publications as Jazztimes, the New York Post and New York Newsday. He studied at the Hochschule fur Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna and holds bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees from Yale University, where he graduated cum laude with Distinction in Music. His teachers include Ludwig Streicher, Donald Palma