Peter Bay to Conclude 30-Year Tenure as Music Director of Austin Symphony at End of 2026-27

In Tuesday’s (9/9) Austin Statesman (Texas), Michael Barnes writes, “Peter Bay thinks that 30 years as conductor of the Austin Symphony Orchestra sounds just about right. That’s why the music director plans to announce Tuesday that he will retire from that position in 2027. He was hired in 1997 … Before he exits, the symphony … plans to devote the 2026-27 season to celebrating Bay’s Austin tenure with tributes, concerts and other special events…. The company will follow that Bay Bash with public auditions for the next conductor during the 2027-28 season…. Before that all starts, however, the current 2025-26 season kicks off Sept. 12-13 with compositions by Prokofiev, Saint-Saëns and Gabriela Ortiz at the Long Center for the Performing Arts…. Bay … served as music director of the Britt Festival Orchestra in Jacksonville, Oregon, for 20 summers. He appeared fairly regularly with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in New York since he was in residence there from 1987 to 2000. Yet his tenure with the Austin Symphony Orchestra is the longest, and, he says, has been the most rewarding in many ways…. He plans to continue conducting through selective guest gigs after he retires from the symphony.”