Peter Butterfield is the Music Director of the Victoria Philharmonic Choir.

Peter grew up in Victoria and studied at McGill University, Montreal. Since his debut as tenor soloist with the Montreal Symphony in 1982, he has been performing internationally. Peter moved to Europe in 1987 and continued his vocal studies and the building of his solo tenor career in Manchester, Florence and London. His choral experience includes everything from a solo treble at King's College Cambridge with Sir David Willcocks, to the Bayreuth Festival Chorus, Norbert Balatsch, Director, the Monteverdi Choir with Sir John Elliot Gardiner, the Florence Opera etc. Peter began conducting alongside his singing in 1995, conducting various groups in England, where he was based, and was associate conductor of I Solisti Madrigale in Florence for 5 years. He has extensive experience in a wide range of choral and solo repertoire.

In November 2007 the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, under Maestro Bramwell Tovey programmed Elgar's choral masterpiece The Dream of Gerontius with Ben Heppner in the title role. At the first performance, Ben Heppner was unable to continue beyond the intermission and Maestro Tovey was on the verge of cancelling the rest of the concert when he remembered that Peter Butterfield was in the audience. Peter’s wife, internationally renowned mezzo-soprano Sarah Fryer was performing on stage. At barely 10 minutes notice, Peter took over from an ailing Ben Heppner in front of a capacity crowd. He hadn't sung it for almost 20 years. He not only sang it, he performed it. He received an impressive and extraordinary ovation from the audience, choir and orchestra which was well deserved. Maestro Tovey knew very well that Peter was up to the challenge!!!

Peter had moved back to the West Coast in 2001 where he became Music Director of the Vancouver Cantata Singers and in 2003, he established the chamber choir VancouverVoices. This choir has accomplished a great deal in a short time and their performances have raised the bar for standards of performance in Vancouver. Peter has worked tirelessly and with great success to gain sponsorships for this group. In 2007 Peter went on to establish VancouverVoices youth choir for singers 10 - 18 years.

Peter is delighted to have the opportunity to lead the VPC through its next phase of growth.

The first concert under Peter's direction was performed following seven weeks of rehearsals at the Church of St John the Divine, Quadra Street, Victoria on May 23rd 2009.