jane vial jaffe program notes
Musicologist Jane Vial Jaffe serves as program annotator, essayist, and consultant for a number of symphony orchestras, festivals, and music presenters, and she also writes for individual performing artists and recording companies. She worked for twenty-nine years at the Aspen Music Festival, many of them as annotator, and writes for the Manhattan School of Music, Great Mountains Music Festival and School in Korea, Rome Chamber Music Festival, Sejong Soloists,
Wichita Symphony, Stockton Symphony, and many other organizations. She has also written on occasion for Carnegie Hall, the Kimmel Center, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Royal Conservatory in Toronto, the Caminos del Inka project, and the symphony orchestras of Chicago, Fort Worth, Long Beach, Monterey, South Arkansas, and Seattle. Her annotations also appear on the Naxos, Chandos, and RCA Victor labels, as well as many independent labels.
Ms. Jaffe earned her Ph.D. at the University of Chicago (becoming the world's leading expert on Brahms's teacher Eduard Marxsen in the process), her Master of Arts degree at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, and her Bachelor of Music degree at Oberlin College. She has periodically taught music history and music appreciation at various colleges and universities, most recently at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. She and her husband Peter Jaffe, conductor of the Stockton Symphony, have three sons: James and twins Adam and Paul. She also works as an editor for music publications and an illustrator of children’s books.