Peter Witte
Chair, Department of Music
Director of Instrumental Studies

Raised in Atlanta's arts and education communities, Peter Witte is Chair of the Department of Music and Director of Instrumental Studies at Kennesaw State University. Conductor of the KSU Wind Ensemble since 1997, Mr. Witte previously held a conducting position at Gettysburg College.

Recently Mr. Witte led performances in Carnegie Hall with the National Wind Ensemble, the Metropolitan Atlanta Youth Wind Ensemble, and with the Atlanta Wind Symphony, with whom he served as Music Director for seven years. Together with the KSU Wind Ensemble and faculty soloists, he has been invited to perform twice at the Georgia Music Educators Association In-Service, and in concert halls at The Dozier Center for the Performing Arts, Emory University, Georgia Tech, Reinhardt College, and at Brenau University. He is a member of the KSU Faculty Chamber Players, a collaborative ensemble comprised of members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Atlanta Opera Orchestra.

Mr. Witte has conducted performances at the University of Michigan, the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, Georgia State University, and with the Cobb Symphony Orchestra, and the Third Army Ground Forces Band. Committed to music in our schools, he serves as conductor, clinician, and coach with bands, orchestras, and honors ensembles throughout the south.

As Chair of Music at Kennesaw, Mr. Witte joins more than 40 faculty and staff colleagues to guide a nationally accredited music program in serving 1,500 students annually, including 180 music majors. To facilitate the programs’ recent growth, KSU is building music and theatre facilities, including a concert hall/rehearsal hall facility projected to open in 2007, and a black-box theatre/music studio facility projected to open in 2008.

As an orchestral performer, Mr. Witte has held horn positions with orchestras in Canada and Michigan, and with summer festivals in Graz, Austria; Grand Tetons, Wyoming; and with the American Waterways Wind Orchestra. With these ensembles, he has performed in musical capitols throughout Europe and North America.

While earning degrees in conducting and horn performance from The University of Michigan, Mr. Witte studied with H. Robert Reynolds, Louis Stout, Lowell Greer, and Bryan Kennedy. Other influential musicians with whom he has studied include Frederick Fennell, Dennis Glocke, Jerry Junkin, Tom Lee, Allan McMurray, Larry Rachleff, Timothy Reynish, Donald Schleicher, Mallory Thompson, Michael Votta, and Rodney Winther in conducting; Marianne Ploger in musicianship; and Arnold Jacobs and Dale Clevenger in performance.

Mr. Witte is a graduate of the Northside School for the Arts in Atlanta. An alumnus of the Brevard Music Center, the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra, and of the Arts Leader of Metro Atlanta class sponsored by the Metro Atlanta Arts & Culture Coalition, he currently serves as an advisor to the Cobb Symphony Orchestra and on the board of trustees of First Montessori of Atlanta.

 

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