Peter Bay & Festival Chamber Orchestra Play Dvorák & Mozart

Peter Bay

Peter Bay became Music Director and Conductor of the Austin Symphony Orchestra in 1998. He is also Music Director of the Hot Springs Music Festival in Arkansas, Conductor of the Big Sky Festival Orchestra in Montana, and the primary conductor for the ASO’s performances with Ballet Austin.

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. In July 2012 he appeared in Solo Symphony, a choreographic work created for him by Allison Orr of Forklift Danceworks. He is the conductor of Hanan Townshend’s score to the motion picture The Vessel.

Michelle Schumann

Hailed for her “sensitive, flexible, and tempestuous dexterity” (Fanfare Magazine), pianist Michelle Schumann has built a reputation for evocative and moving performances. Since 2006, Michelle has served as Artistic Director of the Austin Chamber Music Center, where she “is fearlessly expanding our definition of chamber music.” (Austin-American Statesman). Her brand of performance includes an enthusiastic interplay with the audience and her trademark includes bringing diverse music together under a blanket of narrative events.

Schumann is artist-in-residence and professor of piano at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. She received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Texas at Austin and additionally holds a Performance Diploma from the Vienna Conservatory.

This production has been generously funded by The Creative Fund’s Q Rental Subsidy Grant program. The Creative Fund is a funding mechanism that provides much-needed support to local performing artists enabling them to further their creative endeavors.