Peter Michael [Peter] Hamel (15/07/1947), a German composer, born in Munich. His works have been associated with the Minimalist style of composition, and in the late 1970s with the New Simplicity movement. He has composed four operas; many pieces for orchestra (e.g., "Gestalt"); violin and piano concertos; spiritual compositions for soprano, choirs and orchestra (e.g., "Missa"); "Shoah" (a radio-composition about the Holocaust); a number of chamber-music compositions (including four string quartets); and is in demand as a performing artist (piano, prepared piano, pipe organ, voice and live-electronics). His first symphony was premiered by Sergiu Celibidache in 1988; his second symphony had its first performance in Munich on April 29, 2008 with the Munich Philharmonic. In 2007 Hamel's "Of the Sound of life" for pianist Roger Woodward was published by Celestial Harmonies. Woodward will premiere Hamel's Piano Etudes on January 19, 2009 in the Bavarian Academy of the Fine Arts, Munich.