Peter Jaffe is humming a happy tune.

"It's just really all rose-colored at this point," the Stockton Symphony conductor said.

Jane E. Kenworthy is part of the reason why.

Kenworthy assumes her duties Tuesday as the new executive director and chief executive officer of what she called Stockton's "crown jewel" - providing new energy and enthusiasm as the symphony nears the end of its 81st season and embarks on an ambitious creative project.

"Jane's an extremely intelligent and active member of the orchestra world," Jaffe said. "She also has a great sense of humor. She's really a fabulous person."

"I'm really looking forward to it," said Kenworthy, who comes to Stockton from Fairfax, Va., where she helped restore the 51-year-old Fairfax Symphony Orchestra to fiscal health as its executive director. "Having an organization that's 81 years old is really something to be proud of. I can't be more pleased."

The energetic and upbeat Jaffe, 51, who's been given a five-year contract extension as he concludes his 13th season as conductor, said Kenworthy was hired after a Symphony Association selection committee's "pretty exhaustive search." She takes over for Philip West, who left in August to become managing director of Ballet Memphis.

Among Kenworthy's priorities - in addition to fundraising, promotion and ticket sales - will be expanding the symphony's influence and reach in the community.

"It's my deeply held belief that cultural institutions in a community need to serve as broad a spectrum of the community as possible," said Kenworthy, a violinist by training who has spent 25 years in orchestra management.

She said there was "diversity in the diversity" in Fairfax, near Washington, D.C., and that "every community is different. I have to learn the community to figure out what could work here."

"We have to keep it affordable so that anyone in the community who would like to attend can afford to attend. It's America. It's a democracy. We need to make sure the orchestra is not just for the affluent in the community. It's a real challenge, obviously."

Kenworthy said a $300,000 James Irvine Foundation grant the Stockton Symphony received in 2007 and a preliminary proposal for a new downtown arts facility also are encouraging developments for California's third-oldest orchestra, which has a $1.2 million annual budget.

She's enthused about Jaffe's innovative musical ideas, including an ambitious world premiere being composed by Dave and Chris Brubeck. It's working title is "Ansel Adams: America."

"That tells me there's some spirit of adventure in the programming," said Kenworthy, who heard the symphony perform twice in February and at its March 30 family concert. "You don't have to do just Brahms and Beethoven."

Kenworthy and Jaffe share more than their enthusiasm about the symphony's future. They're both graduates of Oberlin College in Ohio.

"I knew of Peter and admire what he's done here," said Kenworthy, who's also directed orchestras in Minneapolis; Dubuque, Iowa; Roanoke, Va.; and Annapolis, Md. "I really look forward to working with him. He's obviously loved by the community. Everyone talks so glowingly of him."

Jane Hill, a former Sacramento Philharmonic executive who's provided what Jaffe termed a "nice sort of overlap" since West's departure, will help Kenworthy make the transition.

Jaffe said Hill also will work with a consortium of "between six and 12" orchestras in developing the Brubecks' premiere. It will combine their music with Adams' nature photography and be performed as the symphony's season finale in April 2009.

Jaffe said the symphony's 2007-08 season has been "OK" from an economic standpoint: "The things that make everybody cry at the gas pump are problems for us, too."

The orchestra concludes its season by performing Maurice Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" on Thursday and Saturday at San Joaquin Delta College's Atherton Auditorium and with a Pops & Picnic concert May 2 at Stockton Memorial Civic Auditorium.

Contact reporter Tony Sauro at (209) 546-8267 or tsauro@recordnet.com.