Artistic Team

Martín Alexander Arellano is an award-winning conductor and composer of Nicaraguan & Mexican descent, from California. He is a triple laureate of the 2024 American Prize—winning in Opera Conducting, taking 2nd place in Community Orchestra Conducting, and 3rd place in Musical Theater Conducting—and in 2023 received the second jury prize at the Opéra de Baugé International Conducting Competition in France. Alex is the Conductor of the Santa Clarita Symphony and current Music Director of the North Bay Chamber Orchestra in Tampa, FL as well as the Central California Wind Ensemble based in Turlock, CA. He holds conducting degrees from the Strasbourg Conservatoire in France and the University of Iowa in the US.

Alex began studying conducting with Stuart Sims at California State University, Stanislaus and has worked with Robert Carnochan and Stephen Moore at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music. In 2021, he received his COP (Cycle d’Orientation Professionnel) in Orchestral Direction while studying with Theodor Guschlbauer at the Strasbourg Conservatoire, where he was selected to represent the conducting studio in a masterclass with David Reiland and the Orchestre National de Metz.

Alex conducted at the Pierre Monteux Festival in 2025 & 2024, working with Tiffany Lu and Chung Park. In 2022 he was invited to serve as a Conducting Fellow for the Allentown Symphony with Diane Wittry. He has attended workshops with the Järvi Family, David Hill, David Reiland, Paul Vermel, Neil Thomson, Peter Jaffe, and Diane Wittry, and was a Conducting Fellow with the Miami Symphony Orchestra under Eduardo Marturet in 2016–2017.

As a composer, Alex has written for wind ensemble, symphony orchestra, and chamber ensembles. He was a finalist in the Florida Orchestra’s Student Composer Competition with Fantasia on a Song for a Child. He graduated with a Bachelor’s in Music Theory and Composition from the Frost School of Music, studying with Charles Norman Mason, and served as Assistant Conductor to Shawn Crouch with Ensemble Ibis. Alex is a BMI-associated composer and an alumnus of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia.

Brian Stone serves as Artistic Director Laureate of the Santa Clarita Symphony Orchestra, a title conferred in recognition of his transformative leadership. He continues as a creative advisor to the Music Director and returns periodically as a guest conductor.

Prize-winning conductor and award-winning teacher Brian Stone has worked with professional orchestras across California, Missouri, Indiana, Utah, Maryland, Florida, Alaska, Washington, Kansas, Connecticut, Romania, Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria, and with students at universities and All-State Honor Orchestras nationwide.

As a young conductor he was chosen for the League of American Orchestras’ Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview with the Utah Symphony, The Festival at Sandpoint’s Young Conductor Showcase with the Spokane Symphony, and was awarded the “Special Prize” at an international conducting competition in Romania. He received the Jessie B. DuPont Award in Music Education (2008) and the “First Honours Diploma” in the 29th Master Players Music Competition (2009).

In a decade directing the University of Delaware Orchestras, Stone doubled enrollment, tripled performances, and quadrupled the audience. In 2009 the UD Symphony was invited for the first time to perform at the Music Educators National Conference convention.

Stone began on saxophone in the public schools of Santa Monica, later taking up viola and piano. He is a graduate of Bennington College and holds a Master of Music and Doctorate in conducting from the Peabody Conservatory, studying with Frederik Prausnitz and Gustav Meier.