Peter Croton (born 1957, in New York City) is a Swiss-American lutenist and guitarist. He has attained prominence in his field through his numerous recordings, performances, publications, and teaching engagements. His recorded repertoire includes music from the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical periods, as well as his own compositions. His publications include a figured bass manual for classical guitarists and publications of compositions for voice and lute.
Peter Croton began playing folk guitar as a child, and classical and jazz guitar as a teenager. He began his lute studies with Loris Chobanian at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and continued with Eugen Müller-Dombois and Hopkinson Smith at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. In 1984 he won first prize at the "Erwin Bodky" competition for Early Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has performed widely on the lute and guitar as a soloist and with musical partners such as Theresia Bothe, Derek Lee Ragin and Susanne Rydén. He has also appeared on numerous CD recordings. He specializes in instruments of the lute family, but also occasionally performs and records on romantic guitar and jazz guitar.
He teaches lute and thoroughbass at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, guitar-thoroughbass at the Conservatory of Music in Basel, and guitar-thoroughbass and historical performance practice at Bern University of the Arts (Musikhochschule).
Since 2011 Peter Croton has been included in the Marquis Who's Who in the World.