Stockton Symphony Association

Peter Jaffe

Music Director & Conductor

In his seventeenth season as music director of the Stockton Symphony, Peter Jaffe has been credited with fostering sustained artistic growth throughout his tenure. Recipient of the inaugural Denis DeCoteau Award from the Association of California Symphony Orchestras and the Stockton Top Arts Recognition (STAR) Award from the Stockton Arts Commission, he has also been honored by the University of the Pacific and San Joaquin Delta College for innovations in educational programming. With the Stockton Symphony’s subscription series, Mr. Jaffe has earned accolades for his preconcert discussions, which include playing musical examples in his own piano transcriptions. The featured subject of two Continental Cablevision specials, Mr. Jaffe has been a frequent guest on several radio and television programs in California, and a portion of his CD with the Stockton Symphony of Christopher Brubeck’s Mark Twain’s World was broadcast nationally on NPR’s Performance Today.

Mr. Jaffe returns for appearances this season with Symphony Silicon Valley, and has performed in the role of guest conductor with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, Flagstaff Symphony Orchestra, Long Beach Symphony Orchestra, the Sacramento and Virginia Symphonies, Chicago String Ensemble, Missouri Chamber Orchestra, Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, and summer festivals in Sun Valley and Kent/Blossom. He spent three seasons as conductor and director of orchestral activities at the Oberlin Conservatory and two seasons as conductor and visiting professor at Stanford University, highlighted by an Eastern European tour with the Stanford Symphony. In his twelfth season as music director for the Stockton Opera, he conducts Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci and Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi this January. 

Mr. Jaffe has taught at the Conductor’s Institute of South Carolina since 2000 and was a resident conductor and faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival for fourteen years. Under his direction, Aspen’s Young Artist Orchestra series became an important component in the career advancement of numerous prominent rising stars. Many of his Aspen performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio, New York’s WQXR, and KVOD, Denver. Mr. Jaffe performed frequently with Aspen’s Concert Orchestra and Sinfonia, and also conducted the Aspen Opera Theater Center’s U.S. premiere of Augusta Read Thomas’s Ligeia.

Several of Mr. Jaffe’s own arrangements have been commissioned by and performed with orchestras in Aspen, Chicago, Long Beach, and Stockton, including his Symphonic Birthday and transcription of Haydn’s Arianna a Naxos for the late great Jan DeGaetani. A CD of his arrangements was released on the Chandos label, featuring mezzo-soprano Nadia Pelle with I Musici de Montréal, Yuli Turovsky, director. Mr. Jaffe appeared on NBC’s First Camera in a show devoted to Tanglewood, where he was coached by Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, Gunther Schuller, and Gustav Meier. He also studied with Andor Toth, Paul Vermel, Charles Bruck, and Herbert Blomstedt.

Peter Jaffe’s background as an instrumentalist includes extensive performing on the violin, viola, and keyboard. As acting concertmaster of the Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, he spent a season in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and served for several years as staff pianist and vocal accompanist at the Aspen Music Festival. He often conducts from the harpsichord when performing Baroque or early Classic repertoire.

Mr. Jaffe’s wife Jane is a musicologist who writes program notes for many performing organizations. The Jaffes have three sons: James and twins Adam and Paul.