Now in his eighth season as Music Director of Ohio’s Springfield Symphony Orchestra, PETER STAFFORD WILSON is one of the most exciting and talked about conductors of his generation. Concurrently, he holds the post of Music Director of the Westerville Symphony. Mr. Wilson’s current season also includes numerous performances with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra and Columbus Symphony Youth Orchestra, as well as a return to Cedarville University for an all-Gershwin program.

Peter Stafford Wilson's leadership of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra continues to elicit praise from the public, musicians and press. Its 2005 Agriculture and the Arts Growing Together brought international attention to the organization, as is the sequel, American Made: Celebrating Our Manufacturing Heritage, premiering in November 2007. The SSO's innovative series, "Night Lights," has enjoyed steadily increasing sales and attendance. The recent endowment of the Music Director chair with gifts totaling one million dollars is further testimony to the community's support.

From 1990 to 2008, Peter Stafford Wilson held the posts of Assistant and Associate Conductor of The Columbus Symphony Orchestra. In Columbus, his duties included the leadership of the orchestra’s nationally recognized educational projects, which have been featured at national conferences of the American Symphony Orchestra League and Music Educators National Conference. He led programs on all of the orchestra’s classical and Pops subscription series, and played a major role in its 1997 Viva Vienna Festival. Subsequently, he was named Artistic Director of the orchestra’s Festival Weeks @ The Southern, for which his innovative programming was consistently praised. Mr. Wilson is also Music Director of the Columbus Symphony Youth Orchestra, which he has regularly led in local and regional concerts. The CSYO has performed at the national conferences of the ASOL and MENC and at the 1998 International Youth Orchestra Festival in Banff, Alberta. In the summer of 1999, he and the CSYO toured Austria, the Czech Republic and Germany, where they maintain an exchange relationship with the Heinrich Schütz Konservatorium in Dresden. During the summer of 2005, Mr. Wilson led the CSYO on a highly acclaimed tour of The People’s Republic of China, playing to capacity audiences in Beijing, Hefei, Hong Kong and Shanghai, as well as in an historic performance atop the Great Wall of China.

In addition to his myriad activities with the Springfield and Columbus Symphonies, Peter Stafford Wilson's current season includes his continuing duties as Music Director of the Westerville Symphony, a community/collegiate orchestra based at Otterbein College, his debut with the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra and another series of performances with the Erie Philharmonic.

A native of North Carolina, Peter Stafford Wilson studied at the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music, where his primary mentor was the late Thomas Schippers. During his years at CCM, he became a leading exponent of contemporary music, often collaborating with faculty and student composers, including the Conservatory's Visiting Professor of Composition, Lukas Foss. Mr. Wilson also studied at the Aspen Music School, where he studied with Dennis Russell Davies, Eastern Music Festival (on whose faculty he subsequently served), Pierre Monteux School, Boris Goldovsky Summer Opera Institute and Rome's Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, where he was associated with Franco Ferrara. After his advanced studies, he was appointed Assistant, and later Associate, Conductor of the Canton Symphony Orchestra. The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra appointed him Regional Pops Conductor for the 1995 summer season, during which he led the orchestra in a series of widely acclaimed performances in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. Mr. Wilson also enjoyed a multi-year artistic relationship with The Cleveland Orchestra, often serving as cover conductor for Severance Hall and Blossom Music Center events. In 1996, the American Symphony Orchestra League featured him in its Conductor Preview event, a program that encourages emerging conducting talents in the United States.

Peter Stafford Wilson has guest conducted the orchestras of Bozeman, Charlotte, Chautauqua, Dallas, Detroit, Erie, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Louisville, North Carolina, Phoenix, Roanoke, Seattle, Syracuse, Tucson, Tulsa, West Virginia, Wheeling and Youngstown. He also led the Independence Day Concert with Peter Nero’s Philly Pops Orchestra and the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic’s highly popular “Awesome Classics” series, as well as programs with Orquesta Filarmónica de Montevideo and Hong Kong Sinfonietta. No stranger to the lyric theater, Mr. Wilson has held the positions of Principal Conductor of South Carolina’s Opera Charleston and Music Director of the Ohio Light Opera and conducted performances at Spoleto Festival USA, Young Artists Opera Theater, College Light Opera, Canton Lyric Opera and Otterbein College Opera Theatre. He also enjoys an on-going association with BalletMet in Columbus.

Peter Stafford Wilson and his wife, Barbara Karam Wilson, reside in Westerville, Ohio. When not conducting, he enjoys traveling, golf and reading. He is also a wine enthusiast and an avid gourmet cook.

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