Peter Bay, Music Director and Conductor of the Austin Symphony, will be the first speaker at the Viewpoints Distinguished Speaker – Dinner Series.

The series starts Oct, 18, at the Lakeway Activity Center. This popular series includes five catered dinners and five outstanding speakers, and is limited to 200 subscribers.
The doors open at 5:30 p.m., dinner is served at 6 p.m., and the speaker is introduced at 7 p.m.
Peter Bay will speak to “Ask the Maestro,” a format in which he will take questions from the audience. In a recent interview with Paul Brown, commentator at News Channel 8, Austin, Bay told that his musical career began at an early age.
“As far as I know from what my parents have told me, I reacted to music since I was a baby,” he recalled. “But I knew, maybe when I was 7 or 8, that I wanted to be in music – and preferably a conductor. I saw Leonard Bernstein on TV when I was a kid, and I just thought that what he was doing was so exciting and so cool, that I wanted to be just like him. I just had no idea what was involved in getting to that spot.”
First, it was his experience in boys’ and men’s choirs while in school. He remembers well his experiences singing in St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington, D.C.
“This is the church where JFK had his funeral mass,” he explained. “So we were singing every Sunday. I got the sound of classical music in my ear, and it was around that time I really wanted to pursue this.” Bay wound up getting his bachelor’s degree in musical education from the University of Maryland.
In 1980, Bay was the first prize winner of the 1980 Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Young Conductors Competition. In 1994, he was one of two conductors selected to participate in the Leonard Bernstein American Conductors Program.
In January of 1998, Bay was named Music Director and Conductor of the Austin Symphony. He is also the primary conductor for the Austin Symphony’s performances with Ballet Austin. Bay’s wife is the former Mela Sarajane Dailey, and they have a young son, Colin, who was born in the fall of 2008.
The cost of the Viewpoint series is $75 per person for members of the Lakeway Activity Center, or $85 for non-members. The dinners will be catered by County Line, Texastar, Honey Bee Ham, Café Lago, and Shugart & Spice. The Viewpoints speaker selection committee members are Richard Drury, Patricia Jacobsen, Chip Muglia, Steve Miller, Edith Knauer, Diane Smith and Perry Smith.
Greeters for Viewpoints this year are Allan and Anne Hitchcock.
Call Sandi Boston at 261-4733 to report the substitution. If you do not “gift” your reservation, please call Sandi by the Wednesday before the dinner to cancel your reservation so that Viewpoints will not be charged for your meal.
“The Viewpoints Distinguished Speaker – Dinner Series is limited to 200 subscribers,” Pat Jacobsen said. “As of this writing, there are a few spaces left, and anyone wishing to attend should go to the Activity Center soon to sign up for the series.”