Peter Witte

Peter Witte serves as dean of the Conservatory of Music and professor of music at University of the Pacific, a position he began on July 1, 2017.

Prior to his arrival in Northern California, he held administrative and academic posts in Kansas City, Missouri, and Atlanta, Georgia. Educated as horn player and conductor, Mr. Witte began his university teaching career at Gettysburg College.

To date, he has helped to raise $66 M in pledges and gifts in support of scholarships, facilities, and to place students and faculty in significant cultural settings throughout the United States and abroad. He has helped increase music student enrollment and retention at the institutions he served, especially of underrepresented students, and seeks to expand the musical repertoires, skills, and histories studied in American music schools.

Mr. Witte has collaborated with emerging and established arts organizations including New York City's (le) poisson rouge, Kansas City's Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO), and with the conservatories in Tianjin and Shanghai, China, among others.

During his time in Atlanta, Mr. Witte helped plan and open the Bailey Performance Center at Kennesaw State University (KSU), hailed as "a beaut" by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and now home both to KSU's School of Music and to annual residencies by the ASO.

An alumnus of the Atlanta Public Schools and of the University of Michigan, Mr. Witte serves as an advisor to the Presser Foundation and to the Institute for Composer Diversity. Additionally, he sits on the board of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and the National Association of Schools of Music, where he serves as Chair of the Commission on Accreditation.