The mission of the Glens Falls Symphony (GFS) is to be the best in its class among professional orchestras in the U.S. through excellence in performance, adventurous programming, and diverse educational outreach. We are a 501(c)3 non-profit devoted to producing outstanding performances of orchestral music in the concert hall and public outdoor concerts.
For 30+ years, the GFS has brought classical music to audiences in the Adirondack region and beyond and is a leading cultural institution in the greater Glens Falls area. Under the direction of Maestro Charles Peltz, the orchestra is a fully professional union orchestra with musicians hailing from our local region, the Capital District, New York City, Rochester, Boston, New Jersey, and other areas.
The five-concert subscription season is presented from October through May on Sundays at 4 p.m. Most concerts take place at the Glens Falls High School auditorium, an award-winning, state-of-the-art theatre offering comfortable seating for 1,200 concertgoers. Outside the indoor concert season, the orchestra presents free summer pop concerts, including the annual July 3 Independence Day Celebration concert with fireworks in Crandall Park, Glens Falls.
The Symphony's comprehensive five-year strategic plan for 2022–2027 envisions a major expansion of educational programs, including live orchestra concerts for students, musician-student coaching, collaborative performance, and deeply engaging activities that enrich the lives of children from our local Warren County region east into Washington County, and north into the southeastern Adirondack Park.
As one of the leading cultural institutions in the greater Glens Falls region, the Glens Falls Symphony is proud to reside in the smallest city in America to support a fully professional symphony.
“We envision the Glens Falls Symphony as an inspirational music-making organization that delights, uplifts, educates, and connects diverse audiences and participants through the power of great live music. We aspire to be our region’s abiding cultural source for community-building, life-affirming artistic experiences, and audiences of all ages today, and for many generations into the future.”
Mr. Peltz celebrates his 26th season as Music Director of the Glens Falls Symphony. He served for 23 years 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 by invitation at Carnegie Hall and the National Arts Center of Canada. Maestro Peltz’s previous posts include staff conductor with both the Syracuse Symphony and the Buffalo Opera Company. As resident music director of the Fiddlehead Theater Company in Boston, he was annually nominated for the IRNE award for Best Music Director and won the honor for 2016’s nationally recognized production of Showboat.
His guest conducting has included acclaimed appearances in the Lincoln Center Festival in New York, regular appearances with the Orquestra Nacional in Colombia, the Cross-Border Orchestra of Ireland, and teaching residencies in Beijing and Guangzhou, China. Previous seasons have included appearances with the Pacific Symphony, Hamilton Philharmonic, Buffalo Philharmonic, New Jersey Ballet, and the Delaware Valley Philharmonic.
Mr. Peltz’s records have received critical praise on the MODE label, which has seven recordings of his work in its catalog, one of which won a prestigious French “Palme d’Or”. He co-founded and served for five seasons as principal conductor of Musicisti Americani, a summer festival of professional musicians in Rome and Sulmona, Italy. He has collaborated with some of music’s most important artists, including Sarah Chang, Vladimir Feltsman, Paula Robison, Ursula Oppens, Benjamin Beilman, the Canadian Brass, and jazz musicians Dick Hyman and Chris Brubeck; film composers Howard Shore and Michael Kamen; and actor Jose Ferrer. The list of composers with whom he has had long relationships includes Lukas Foss, Gunther Schuller, John Cage, John Harbison, Karel Husa, Joan Tower, Jennifer Higdon, Michael Colgrass, David Amram, Michael Gandolfi, and Augusta Read Thomas.
As an award-winning educator, Mr. Peltz has held positions at Harvard, Ithaca College, and SUNY Buffalo. He is a frequent conductor of youth festival orchestras and bands, serving for a total of 17 seasons as the Director of Orchestras at the Luzerne Music Center, in Lake Luzerne, NY.
Mr. Peltz graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music with distinction in performance and highest academic honors. His mentors included Murray Sidlin at the Aspen Music Festival, Frank Battisti, Pamela Gearhart, Richard Woitach, and Donald Hunsberger.
Mr. Peltz resides in the Boston area with his wife, Glens Falls Symphony Cellist Kirstin Peltz.
Begun in 1977 as a community orchestra at the then-Adirondack Community College, the Symphony incorporated as a not-for-profit corporation in 1983. In 1990, the Board and musicians voted to adopt membership in the national American Federation of Musicians (AFM), the professional musicians’ union. This enabled the orchestra to advertise in the AFM publications for players, enabling the orchestra to recruit nationally.
In 2000, the current Music Director, Charles Peltz, was hired to lead the orchestra. During the next 22 years, Mr. Peltz, who is an award-winning faculty member of the prestigious New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, has consistently challenged what is possible for a regional orchestra. His energy, preparation, and artistry have drawn ever-finer musicians to join the orchestra, and have attracted nationally known solo artists like Sarah Chang and Chris Brubeck. The orchestra has also consistently collaborated and/or co-commissioned works from America’s most esteemed living composers such as Jennifer Higdon, Ezra Laderman, David Amram, Joan Tower, and Christopher Theofanidis. The orchestra regularly performs at an artistic level expected from orchestras with two to five times the budget size.
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Joseph Schwantner has referred to the Glens Falls Symphony as “One of the great orchestras of the country.”
Dress Rehearsal for 2018–19 Season Opening Concert
