Peter Mumford trained as a stage designer at the Central School of Art in London, studying under Ralph Koltai, in the late Sixties. In 1969, during his last year at art school, he became a founder member of the mixed media experimental theatre group Moving Being (director Geoff Moore), with whom he worked as designer and lighting and projection designer on all productions until 1978, moving to Cardiff with the company in 1972. After that he continued to work with Moving Being on a project basis but began a wider based freelance career. In the late Seventies he became a part time member of the faculty of the London Contemporary School of Dance at The Place, teaching a course relating choreography to visual art and design and also at that time began collaborating with a number of choreographers in their early work at The Place, such as Siobhan Davies, Richard Alston, Ian Spink and many others. When the company Second Stride was formed in the early Eighties Peter was a founding collaborator as lighting designer - another working relationship that would last for nearly another decade. In the Eighties, Peter designed the lighting for a huge number of dance works for companies such as London Contemporary Dance Theatre, Rambert, Second Stride, Siobhan Davies Co. and many other individual projects at that time. He also continued to design projects with Moving Being like the major site specific “Mabinogion” - first at Carnarvon Castle and later in Cardiff.

His work gradually expanded into opera, designing sets/costumes and lighting for

“Parsifal “for WNO in 1978 and then into drama more towards the end of the Eighties.

“The Overgrown Path” at The Royal Court in 1985 was the first straight play he lit in London.

In 1987 he co-founded Dancelines Productions, a film/TV production company committed to creating and producing dance for television. He produced and directed many programmes/films for Dancelines for both Channel Four and BBC2 up until the mid- Nineties and during that period the work won many awards including OperaScreen IMZ  1991- Best New Work / DanceScreen 1992 - Best Studio Adaptation/ Video Danse Grand Prix 1994 - best series (Dance House) and an Emmy Nomination for the TV adaptation of Mathew Bourne’s Swan Lake which Peter directed.

The last real work in this area was the series “48 Preludes and Fugues” (Bach) for BBC2 in 2002 - 48 short films, of which Peter directed 24 and was lighting director on the rest.

His work is now predominantly in the area of lighting design, but still designs sets on certain projects such as Carmen ( ballet) for Miami City Ballet.

He has directed on occasion in the theatre as well as film/TV.

Productions include “Hamletmachine” and “No, to the Yes-sayer” (Jasager/Neinsager);  both at St. Stephens Theatrespace in Cardiff. “The Man with the Foot-soles of Wind”; Almeida Opera. “Earth and the Great Weather”; Almeida Opera. “ L’Heure Espangnol” & L’Enfant et Les Sortileges”; Opera Zuid.

Recently he has directed and designed a concert version of Wagner's Ring Cycle for Opera North which will be seen as an entire Cycle in 2016 including performances at The South Bank, London. In 2015 he also directed and designed The Flying Dutchman for Opera North in Leeds and touring. 

Work in the theatre nowadays, is spread fairly equally across drama, dance (ballet) and opera.

Recent theatre includes: Mr Foote’s Other Leg, A Christmas Carol, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Donkey Heart, Stephen Ward, Top Hat (West End); Bull (Young Vic); Little Eyolf, Ghosts (West End/BAM); Bakkhai (Almeida); High Society, Other Desert Cities (Old Vic); King Kong (Melbourne); King Lear (Chichester Festival Theatre/BAM); Scenes from an Execution (National Theatre); Wonderland, The Last of the Duchess, Enlightenment (Hampstead). The Republic of Happiness, The Wolf from the Door, Circle Mirror Transformation, Jumpy (& West End), Our Private Life, Sucker Punch, Drunk Enough To Say I Love You (& Public Theater, NYC), The Seagull (& Broadway), Love & Information (& Minetta Lane, NYC), Dying City (& set design) (Royal Court).

Opera & Dance includes: Andrea Chénier (Opera North); Carmen (Royal Ballet/chor: Carlos Acosta); The King Dances, Faster, E=mc2, Take Five (Birmingham Royal Ballet); Carmen (& set design, Miami City Ballet/chor: Richard Alston); Ein Reigen (Vienna State Ballet); Katya Kabanova (Boston Lyric Opera); Manon Lescaut (Baden Baden); Werther; Madama Butterfly, Faust (Metropolitan Opera); La Traviata (Glyndebourne); The Damnation of Faust, Madame Butterfly (ENO); Pelléas et Mélisande (Mariinsky). 

Awards include: Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance (The Glass Blew In, Siobhan Davies/Fearful Symmetrie); Olivier Lighting Award (The Bacchai); Knight of Illumination Award (Sucker Punch); Helpmann & Green Room Awards for Best Lighting (King Kong).