Conductor

Peter Bay is celebrating his 13th full season as Music Director and Conductor of the Austin Symphony, and has been Music Director of the Britt Festival Orchestra in Jacksonville, OR since 1993.

Maestro Bay’s guest appearances have included the National, Chicago, St. Louis, Houston, Dallas, Baltimore, New Mexico, New Jersey, North Carolina, Syracuse, Virginia, West Virginia, Colorado, Hawaii, Jacksonville, Richmond, Alabama, Arkansas, Canton, Eugene, Fort Worth, Springfield, Bochum (Germany), Carinthian (Austria), Lithuanian National Symphonies, the Minnesota and Algarve (Portugal) Orchestras, the Louisiana, Buffalo, Rhode Island, Tulsa, Fort Wayne and Reno Philharmonics, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Eastman (Postcard from Morroco) and Aspen Opera Theaters (The Ballad of Baby Doe), and the Theater Chamber Players of the Kennedy Center. Summer music festival appearances have included Aspen (CO), Music in the Mountains (CO), Grant Park and Ravinia (IL), Round Top (TX), OK Mozart (OK) and Skaneateles (NY).

Peter is the primary conductor for the ASO’s performances with Ballet Austin. He made his Austin Lyric Opera debut in January 2002 with Andre Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire, conducted Verdi’s La Traviata in November 2002, Puccini’s Turandot in November 2003, and Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro in April 2005.

Other positions held by Mr. Bay have included Music Director of the Erie Philharmonic, Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, Breckenridge Music Festival (CO) and four different conducting posts with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and the Richmond Symphony in Virginia. Bay and the Richmond Symphony recorded the US premiere performance of Britten’s “The Sword in the Stone” for Opus One Records. His CD, Voices, featuring the percussion ensemble NEXUS and the Rochester Philharmonic, is on the Nexus CD label.

A native of Washington, DC, Mr. Bay is a graduate of the University of Maryland and the Peabody Institute of Music. In 1994, he was one of two conductors selected to participate in the Leonard Bernstein American Conductors Program. He was also the first prize winner of the 1980 Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Young Conductors Competition and a prize winner of the 1987 Leopold Stokowski Competition sponsored by the American Symphony Orchestra in New York.

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