Peter R. Kermani has passed away. He was 85.

Kermani, born in Albany, NY, credited the start of his musical passion to childhood trips to the Metropolitan Opera and Carnegie Hall as well as frequent summer excursions as a teenager to concerts and open rehearsals of the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood. Kermani graduated from the Albany Academy for Boys and St. Lawrence University, where he majored in economics with minors in classical music and geology

For three decades Kermani served on the Albany Symphony Orchestra board of directors, initially helping it forestall bankruptcy. He held a 25-year tenure as chairman. He worked closely with music director Julius Hegyi and in 1992 hired his successor, David Alan Miller, who still holds the position of music director.

Kermani also served for seven years as chairman of the American Symphony Orchestra League, and was on the board of the American Composers Orchestra and Composers Recordings, Inc. He testified before a U. S. Senate subcommittee on arts funding chaired by Sen. Edward Kennedy.

In 1987, he co-founded Albany Records, a label devoted to lesser-known classical repertoire with an emphasis on American performers and composers. Kermani also launched Albany Music Distributors.

Kermani passed on May 3.