Austin Symphony: Home Alone

• Peter Bay, conductor

A true holiday favorite, this beloved comedy classic features renowned composer John Williams' charming and delightful score performed live to picture by your Austin Symphony Orchestra. Macaulay Culkin stars as Kevin McCallister, an 8-year-old boy who is accidentally left behind when his family leaves for Christmas vacation, and who must defend his home against two bungling thieves. Hilarious and heart-warming, Home Alone is holiday fun for the entire family!

About Austin Symphony

Founded in 1911, the Austin Symphony Orchestra is Austin’s oldest performing arts group. The ASO offers a complete season of musical and educational programming.

Masterworks Series concerts include eight concert pairs running monthly September through May in the state-of-the-art Joe R. & Teresa Lozano Long Center for the Performing Arts. Our season also includes the Sarah & Ernest Butler Pops Series, which features 4 concerts running October through June Pops also at the Long Center.

Programming for the entire family includes the Halloween Children’s Concert and the Sounds of the Season, as well as the popular James C. Armstrong Youth Educations Programs, which include ASO Tuneful Tales, Young People’s Concerts, High School Concert Tour, and a variety of other school programs.

About Peter Bay, conductor

Peter Bay became Music Director and Conductor of the Austin Symphony Orchestra in 1998. He is also Conductor of the Bravo! Big Sky Classical Festival Orchestra (MT) and Arizona Philharmonic.

Maestro Bay has appeared with more than 80 different orchestras, including the National, Chicago, St. Louis, Houston, Dallas, Baltimore, New Jersey, North Carolina, San Antonio, Tucson, West Virginia, Colorado, Hawaii, Sarasota, Fort Worth, Bochum (Germany), Carinthian (Austria), Lithuanian National, and Ecuador National Symphonies, the Minnesota and Algarve (Portugal) Orchestras, the Louisiana, Buffalo, Arizona, Rhode Island and Boca del Rio (Mexico) Philharmonics, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Eastman (Postcard from Morocco) and Aspen (The Ballad of Baby Doe) Opera Theaters, and the Theater Chamber Players of the Kennedy Center. Summer music festival appearances have included Aspen and Music in the Mountains (CO), Grant Park and Ravinia (IL), Round Top (TX), OK Mozart (OK) and Skaneateles (NY). In June 2018, he led performances of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass as part of the Bernstein100Austin celebration.

Peter is the primary conductor for Ballet Austin. For Austin Opera, he has conducted "A Streetcar Named Desire," "La Traviata," "Turandot," "The Marriage of Figaro," and "La bohème."

Other positions held by Bay have included Music Director of the Erie Philharmonic, Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, Breckenridge Music Festival (CO), Britt Festival Orchestra (OR), Hot Springs Music Festival (AR), and posts with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and Richmond Symphony. From 1980 to 1990 he served on the conducting staff of the Aspen Music Festival where he led concerts with four of its orchestras. Bay and the ASO with pianist Anton Nel released a critically acclaimed Bridge CD of Edward Burlingame Hill’s music. With the Richmond Symphony he recorded the US premiere of Britten’s "The Sword in the Stone" for Opus One Records, and with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra Voices, featuring the percussion ensemble NEXUS. He is conductor for Christopher Cross’ "Secret Ladder" album and Hanan Townshend’s soundtrack to the 2016 movie "The Vessel."

In 1994, he was one of two conductors selected to participate in the Leonard Bernstein American Conductors Program. He was the first prize winner of the 1980 Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Young Conductors Competition and a prize winner of the 1987 Leopold Stokowski Competition sponsored by the American Symphony Orchestra. In July 2012 he appeared in Solo Symphony, a choreographic work created for him by Allison Orr of Forklift Danceworks. He was inducted into the Austin Arts Hall of Fame in May 2016.