"So I became a musician full-time," he says. "I thought I would do it one year, but after a year it had blossomed enough that I didn't have the heart to stop doing it, because I enjoyed it."

That first album, "Songs of the Great Divide" (a k a Peter Breinholt and the Big Parade), has sold over 50,000 copies and is still his biggest money-maker. It didn't even have the benefit of radio time; it was sold strictly by word of mouth. Suddenly, the tapes were being passed around at the U., and high school kids were singing his songs and BYU was playing one of his tunes at halftime of a football game.

"The album allowed me to turn to music full-time right away," says Breinholt. "I didn't even have to have a job to tide me over."

For the next two years, he played the local circuit, but his career made another quantum leap in 1995 when he rented a small theater at Westminster College, sold advance tickets and hired a string quartet. A radio show got wind of the concert and promoted it. Breinholt and his band were scheduled to play one night; they wound up doing three nights, and still they had to turn people away.

"For the first time we put on a real show," says Breinholt, "and it struck a chord with the audience. It felt like where we wanted to be. Before that, our performances were pretty raw. It was just the three of us, making up set lists. After that, there was a real buzz about our show. So we went to the U. three weeks later and did three more shows, and those sold out. It created the template of our show now."

Your music has changed me to be a better person. You're one of my favorite artists. The Sundance concert is a yearly tradition for us and will be for some time.

Unlike bands that tour the country and do essentially the same show night after night, Breinholt and his band must come up with fresh material for each of their major shows because they have been playing for the same crowd for a decade. It has forced him to be creative and exacting. Breinholt has employed cellos, violins, fiddles, bagpipes, mandolins, bouzoukis, accordions, harmonicas, didgeridoos and a large cast of guest musicians — Jon Schmidt, Nancy Hanson, Russ Dixon — all built around his "first-string band" of Ryan Shupe, Craig Minor, Mike Ensign, David Tolk and Rory Carerra.

"Peter is an absolute perfectionist," says Kelly Heuston, Breinholt's former assistant. "He can hear every missed note. That's why he rehearses so incessantly. He's very meticulous. He'll videotape his shows and go over it and over it. He tears it up looking for things he can do better."