Peter Pastreich

Executive Director

Peter Pastreich has been Executive Director of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra since June, 2009.

During the 10 years prior to his appointment, Pastreich organized and served as Director of the League of American Orchestra’s “Essentials of Orchestra Management” seminar, and of a seminar in orchestra and concert hall management for the University of Zurich. He did management consulting in Europe, for the Berlin Philharmonic and the South Bank Centre in London; in the United States, for the Detroit, Milwaukee, and Santa Barbara symphonies; and in Australia. He also served as mediator in several orchestra union negotiations.

Pastreich had previously been with the San Francisco Symphony. He left in 1999, after serving as its Executive Director for 21 years, during the Symphony’s period of most dramatic growth. He served for 12 years as Executive Director of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, as Business Manager of the Kansas City Philharmonic, Manager of the Nashville Symphony and of the Greenwich Village Symphony in New York, and Assistant Manager of the Denver Symphony and the Baltimore Symphony. He was the chief administrator responsible for the construction of Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco and Powell Symphony Hall in St. Louis. In San Francisco and St. Louis he helped produce more than 80 recordings. Both orchestras expanded their seasons from fewer than 35 to 52 weeks during his tenure. He also managed more than 50 concert tours of the United States, Europe, and Asia.

Deeply committed to new music, Pastreich was involved in the commissioning of more than 30 works by composers who include John Adams (whose El Dorado, written in 1991, is dedicated to him), Elliott Carter, John Harbison, Witold Lutoslawski, George Perle, Sir Michael Tippett, and Charles Wuorinen. Pastreich coordinated the searches that engaged Leonard Slatkin in St. Louis and Michael Tilson Thomas in San Francisco, both of whom are among the most important American conductors of this era. Pastreich served for 10 years as a member of the Seaver/NEA Conductors Award Executive Council, identifying and assisting promising American conductors. He was a member of the Jury for the Bamberg Symphony Mahler Conducting Competition in 2004, when Gustavo Dudamel was awarded first prize, and also in 2006.

Pastreich was Vice Chairman of the League of American Orchestras, and the first Chairman of the League’s Task Force on Management Training, a program designed to recruit and train future orchestra managers. In 1999, Pastreich was made a Chevalier des arts et des lettres by the French government and received the League of American Orchestras’ Gold Baton Award. In May 2006, he received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville.