Peter Slavov is a New York City-based double bassist, composer, session musician, arranger and educator. Since he began playing professionally in the mid-1990’s, Peter has performed at some of the most prestigious venues and festivals in more than 40 countries on 5 continents.

Peter was studying classical music at the prestigious L.Pipkov Music School in Sofia, Bulgaria when he discovered the music of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. Soon, he became the busiest bassist on the jazz and contemporary music scene in Bulgaria, playing with some of the country’s finest musicians and touring around Europe. In 1997, Peter was awarded the Best Composition Award at the Plovdiv Jazz Festival for his piece Dizziness.

In 1998 Peter received a scholarship from Boston’s Berklee College of Music, and in 1999 moved to Boston to attend Berklee. In 2001, he was awarded the Berklee Bass Department’s John Neves Memorial Scholarship Award for Outstanding Musicianship, as well as a full scholarship. After graduating from Berklee in 2002, Peter Slavov has performed and recorded with world-renowned artists, such as: Joe Lovano, Quincy Jones,George Garzone, Chucho Valdes, Danilo Perez, Kevin Mahogany and Simon Shaheen, among many others.

Peter is currently a member Grammy award-winning saxophonist Joe Lovano’s Classic Quartet as well as with Lovano’s Us Five band. In 2012, Us Five received the Award for Best Small Group by the Jazz Journalists Association of America.
Peter Slavov is also featured on the last album by Joe Lovano and Us Five - "Cross Culture", which was released on the historic Blue Note label. Peter Slavov has performed with twenty seven-time Grammy award-winning producer/composer/arranger Quincy Jones’ Global Gumbo Project. Peter has also recorded for Jones. He is featured on pianist Alfredo Rodriguez’ GRAMMY®-nominated album The Invasion Parade , which Quincy Jones produced.

Peter Slavov’s current album, Little Stories, was released at the end of 2019 to great acclaim. It is concept album in which each composition is accompanied by a short printed one-paragraph story that explains the inspiration behind the music, and/or the meaning of the title. The music was recorded by a core band enhanced on different tracks with strings, voice, acoustic guitar and bass clarinet. All the music was written and arranged by Peter Slavov and is a collection of material written over the past 20 years. The cover art was painted by acclaimed Chilean artist Maria Jose Concha and was inspired by the music.

In the spring of 2013, Peter was commissioned to write a piece for jazz trio and a chamber orchestra. The piece, “Gone”, was performed in July 2013 by the Varna Chamber Orchestra at the Festival Complex in Varna, Bulgaria as part of the Varna Summer Music Festival.

Peter Slavov’s composition “A.M.” was used in the soundtrack to the 2012 documentary Without Borders: True Tales From The U.S.A. Peter’s recording credits include more than 35 albums. In 2010, as part of vocalist Sophie Milman’s band, Peter recorded for the soundtrack to the documentary Jews And Baseball: An American Love Story, directed by award winning director and producer Peter Miller, and narrated by Dustin Hoffman.

Peter Slavov has performed at some of the most prestigious festivals around the world, including: The Monterey Jazz Festival, The Detroit Jazz Festival, Festival de Jazz de Montreal, The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, The North Sea Jazz Festival (Holland), Umbria Jazz Festival (Italy), Jazz a Juan(France), Paris Jazz Festival, Dubai Jazz Festival (UAE), Istanbul Jazz Festival (Turkey), The Israel Festival (Israel), The Red Sea Jazz Festival (Israel), The Vancouver Jazz Festival (Canada), Varna Summer, Apollonia (Bulgaria), and many more. Peter has also performed at numerous legendary performance venues, such as: Jazz at Lincoln Center (New York City), The Fox Theater (Atlanta), Severance Hall (Cleveland), MGM Grand (Las Vegas),The Detroit Institute of Art (Detroit), Olympia Hall (Paris), Massey Hall (Toronto),The Jerusalem Theater (Jerusalem), Bulgaria Hall (Sofia), Chang Kai Shek National Concert Hall(Taipei), Bimhuis (Amsterdam), Centro Nacional de las Artes (Mexico City), The Village Vanguard (New York City), Birdland (New York City), Blue Note (New York, Milan, Tokyo, Beijing and Nagoya), The Jazz Standard (New York City),Yoshi’s (San Francisco), Minton’s Playhouse (New York City), Dakota (Minneapolis), New Morning (Paris), La Cigale (Paris), Duc Des Lombards (Paris), Zappa (Tel Aviv) and countless more.

He has been featured on WNYU New York, Fox 5 New York, WGBH-NPR Boston, WBGO-NPR Newark, CBC(Canada), PBS, TF1(France), Mezzo TV(France), Azteca TV (Mexico), Radio France Internationale, WERS - Boston, Jazz FM(Bulgaria), BR(Germany), Bulgarian National Television and the Bulgarian National Radio.

Peter Slavov has taught master classes at Universidad Veracruzana in Xalapa, Mexico; Mahidol University in Thailand; New Bulgarian University, Sofia, Bulgaria;The Sofia Philharmonic, Bulgaria; University of Maryland, College Park, MD; West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV; Berklee College Of Music, Boston, MA, the Wheeler School in Providence, RI.