Peter Reynolds was born in 1958 and studied in Cardiff where he lived and work. During the 1980s he received several bursaries to attend the Dartington Summer School where he studied with the Peter Maxwell Davies, Morton Feldman and Gordon Crosse and was awarded the Michael Tippett Award for Composition in 1986.

 

In 1987 he co-founded the Ixion new music ensemble. More recently, in 1990, he also formed the Cardiff-based PM Music Ensemble. From 1997 to 2009 he was the Artistic Director of the Lower Machen Festival in Monmouthshire.

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He launched a series of free foyer concerts at Wales Millennium Centre, with some 500 performances per year between 2004 and 2007, and was composer-in-residence with the Young Composer of Dyfed from 2010 to 2013.

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His music has been played by performers including Bingham String Quartet, James Clapperton, Icebreaker, the Guildhall Strings, Sterling String Quartet, Sharon McKinley, Charlie Barber + Band, Carlo Rizzi, Lesley Garret and his own PM Music Ensemble. His music has been broadcast on Radio 3, BBC Wales and BBC Television. In 1993 his opera The Sands of Time was recognised by the Guinness Book of Records as a world record for the world's shortest opera at 3 minutes and 34 seconds.

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Peter taught composition at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, where he was very highly regarded, until his untimely death in 2016.