The Band

Pete Ardron

Pete has been writing music since he was 13. His first passion was 'classical music' especially Russian and then French, particularly the turn of the 20th Century. An almost fanatical obsession with the music of Russian composer Scriabin continues today. By 18 when he started playing with (rock) bands two other passions, world and psychedelic music were also firmly in place. He studied music, specializing in composition at Surrey University.

Before Orchid-Star Pete had 2 long term bands as the main writer and driving force, Vers La Flamme - named after a piece of Scriabin's piano music - his first big project with Pierre Luigi, and Glow, well established on the global-dance/world-music scene in the late 90s. WOMAD broke their own rules to invite Glow to play 2 years in a row after their set in the small Whirl-Y-Gig tent in 1998 became the talk of the festival. Glow also included Myo as well as previous Orchid-Star members Diane Everitt and Bagz, and guest Sean Quinn.

Pete Ardron
Pete has released 9 solo albums including 'Crystal Matrices' - music for meditation based on the internal mathematics of crystals for which he received an Hon PhD from the UK School of Esoteric Crystal Sciences(!), Music for Maurice Agis's Colourspace art installation which was listed in the NME in the 90s along with acts like The Orb, as one of '12 albums to start your ambient collection with', 'Hanging on Perfumed Air' sets for the legendary Whirl-Y-Gig Parachute - his first solo gig was also W-Y-G's first parachute set at a festival, Phoenix in '93, and most recently “Aria” and “Inside The Voice Inside” which include tracks heard in early Orchid-Star sets and feature Samanta Ray and Myo.
The last 2 were originally released on Pink Hampster like the others but in 2009 were re-released digitally by Cyberset.
They also mark the start of another aspect of Pete's career. In 2002 he was asked to do his first DJ sets. For the first couple of years he stuck only to his own productions and these plus all the tracks on Orchid-Star's Birth were a result of Pete's self-imposed rule of a new track for each set

He has now finished his 10th album Unexpected Pleasures, which should be out mid 2015

Pete Ardron
He conducted at the Royal Albert Hall at a concert for peace in the Middle East in collaboration with Algerian singer Houria Niati.

He has professional credits as writer, co-writer, arranger, producer, engineer, mastering engineer, performer.
He has done remixes for Afro Celt Sound System, Dorothee Munyaneza (Hotel Rwanda), Terra Nine, Trancient Dreams, Nathassia Devine, Petra Mor, Phoenix Rose and others.
He produced half of Nathassia Devine's 2014 album Cosmic and N'Faly Kouyaté's album Change, due out in 2015. He is currently creatively working on albums with Afro Celt Sound System and Orchid-Star's Samantha Ray (a classical crossover project).

You can find out more about Pete at www.peteardron.com

Pete Ardron