Music Director Charles Peltz

Maestro Peltz celebrates his 25th season as Music Director of the Glens Falls Symphony in 2024-25!

In over two decades as music director of the Glens Falls Symphony, he has brought ever-growing audiences innovative and diverse programming in live performance and radio broadcasts.  His commitment to the music of our time is best shown by the Symphony’s lead role in the American League of American Orchestra’s Made in America commissioning project and by further collaborations with composers including Joan Tower, Jennifer Higdon, Joseph Schwantner and Michael Gandolfi.

He served for 23 as the Director of the New England Conservatory Wind Ensembles at New England Conservatory where he is now honored as emeritus faculty. The internationally recognized Wind Ensemble under his direction performed recorded commercially and performed by invitation at Carnegie Hall and the National Arts Center of Canada and premiered a catalog of new works, among those by Gunther Schuller, Michael Colgrass, Michael Gandolfi, and Hans Werner Henze. 

Exciting performances in an extraordinarily wide range of repertoires are the marks of his work.   Early in his career as principal conductor of Musicisti Americani, his performances drew the enthusiastic praise of the Italian press: “He draws haunting sounds from the orchestra...in finely judged performances.”   The American press is equally impressed noting “a special sensitivity which Peltz has” and that “this opera was an aural delight, one was tempted to close one’s eyes and just listen.” And in South America “he is a fiesta for eyes and ears.”  His collaborations with artists from a wide world of music show the range of his work - from John Cage to Jose Ferrer, from Lucas Foss to Howard Shore, from Sarah Chang to Richard Hyman.

His international career began early as co-founder of the Musicisti Americani festival In Italy and has continued with ensembles in Europe, South America, and Asia.  His North American engagements have included the Buffalo and Hamilton Philharmonics and the Pacific and Syracuse Symphonies.   His new music engagements included regular appearances in the North American New Music Festival and the 2000 Lincoln Center Festival.  He has eight recordings on the MODE label, one of which earned a French palm d’or. 

As a conductor of musical theater in Boston, he received six nominations as Best Music Director by the Independent Reviewers of New England, winning the award for a nationally recognized production of Showboat; the Boston Globe said his work was “eye- and ear-popping professional…. spirited and sumptuous”.  As resident director of the Greater Buffalo Opera Company and other companies, he has led productions ranging from Mozart to Weill, Puccini to Menotti, Strauss to Britten.

A committed educator he has held positions at Harvard, Ithaca College, SUNY at Buffalo as well as at NEC.  His conducting students are appearing with major orchestras in the United States and Europe. His teaching awards include the Krasner Award at NEC and the Pleasure Award at SUNY AB.  Peltz served twenty years as Director of the orchestra at the summer Luzerne Music Center, teaching an international array of students.  As a staff member of the Syracuse Symphony, he led their Youth Orchestra for six seasons and instituted their yearly retreats with internationally recognized composers. He has every year led All-State and other honors orchestras and bands across the country. 

His service to music and community includes a personal invitation from film composer Michael Kamen to be a founding board member of Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation, on which he served for a decade. He co-founded the Gunther Schuller Society promoting the legacy of that essential musician. Peltz has served as a Divisional President of the CBDNA, having produced two ground-breaking conferences. He served as well two terms as an elder at Boston’s historic Park Street Church.