Peter the young performer:
He would just sing! A great voice? He could carry a tune. It was something else other than singing ability. Actually, it was plain ham! He’d strut, spread his arms, shake his finger, and he had a set of blue eyes that could snap their way up to the back row of any theater or auditorium.
Peter the college student and performer:
“Peter loves people and people seem to love Peter. Ham is the frequently used adjective to describe a nineteen year old junior at Gorham State Teachers College.”
– Shirley Gordon – Portland Paper, 1965.
Peter the comic:
He was singing some Broadway duets with Barbara Adams Pierce, who at the time was very pregnant . . . Peter was introducing a medley from Kismet and saying that . . . it was just the usual story in which the boy tries to get the girl. Then he turned and stared pointedly at Barbara’s stomach and said, ‘As you can see, the boy eventually succeeds.’
– As told by Kay Hynes, Harvey’s #1 fan, to Steve Metcalf, Courant music critic
Peter the tenor and jokester:
“Mid-tape, right in the middle of the song, ‘When the Lights Go On Again all Over the World,’ I suddenly realized that my pad was saturated with tears. I am rarely moved to tears over music. ‘Madam Butterfly’ – that’s about it these days. The following day I telephoned Harvey.
‘I loved the tape,’ I extolled. ‘I even cried. I don’t often.’
‘I’m so glad I made you happy,’ he replied.
I stopped. For a micro-second, I thought he was serious. And, that IS Peter Harvey! One minute he elicits tears, and the next, bales of laughter.”
– Commentary by Joanie Huntington
Peter the professional musician:
Peter Harvey – singer, conductor, educator – professor of music at Hartford College for Women and dean of faculty at the Hartford Camerata Conservatory of Music with a doctorate from the Hartt School of Music, which named him 1989 Alumnus of the Year. For more than a decade he was musical director of the Theater Guild of Simsbury. Since winning both the Connecticut Opera auditions and the Metropolitan Opera New England Regional auditions, Dr. Harvey has sung the principal roles in all the standard lyric opera repertoire with companies throughout the Northeast.
– From page 65 of Remembering Peter