Matthew Mailman, DMA
Professor of Conducting, Director of Winds
Music
Music - Opera & Music Theater
Music - Conducting & Ensembles
Biography
is professor of Conducting in the Wanda L. Bass School of Music at ӰAV, a position he has held since 1995. Dr. Mailman has had extensive and diverse experience conducting bands, operas, musicals, orchestras, choirs, and chamber music. He serves as Music Director of ӰAV's award-winning Wind Ensemble and Wind Philharmonic and a Music Director for the Oklahoma Opera and Music Theater Company.
At ӰAV, Dr. Mailman has conducted 55 operas and musicals and has led the Wind Ensemble and Wind Philharmonic in 18 world premieres, on five tours, at two OK Mozart Festivals, and at nine convention performances. He teaches graduate and undergraduate conducting and coordinates ӰAV's Masters in Conducting program.
Dr. Mailman is the 2023 BroadwayWorld Oklahoma winner for Best Music Director & Orchestral Performance and was a finalist in the 2023 Warsaw Wind Band Conducting Competition. He music directed Sunday in the Park With George for El Paso Opera in April/May 2024. As Conductor/Artist in Residence at Opera in the Ozarks, he conducted Carlisle Floyd's opera Susannah in the summer of 2007 and Mozart's Cosí fan Tutte in 2008. He was one of 10 conducting fellows selected for the 2014 Baltimore Chamber Orchestra Summer Conducting Seminar with Markand Thakar and Henry Fogel and is a Clinician for the College Orchestra Directors Association. He is a frequent convention clinician and has presented his clinic, "Conductors….What the Heck Are We Doing?!" at several regional and national conventions, including the 2016 Texas Music Educators Association and the 2016 Oklahoma Bandmasters Association.
A champion of new music, he has collaborated with many significant composers, including Nico Muhly, Michael Daugherty, Catherine Likhuta, Edward Knight, Karel Husa, Jerod Tate, Jack Stamp, Frank Ticheli, Martin Mailman, Ron Nelson, Philip Schroeder, Ray Luke, Kristopher Maloy, Christopher Lowry, Brian Balmages, and Cindy McTee.
Dr. Mailman has been an associate conductor with the Oklahoma Youth Orchestras, Inc. since 1997, and is the Music Director of the Oklahoma Youth Winds, which was founded by Dr. Mailman in 2004 and which was selected to perform for the first time at the 2013 Oklahoma Music Educators Association Annual In-service and again in 2015 and 2017. With OYW, he founded the Annual Student Conductor Competition, the OYW National Composition Competition, and the OYW/ NAfME Teaching Internship. His work has been published in The Instrumentalist and Teaching Music, and he is a research associate and writer for 9 volumes in the series Teaching Music Through Performance in Band. Southern Music published his arrangement of Mozart's Flute Concerto No. 2, K. 314 for Harmonie. For five years, Dr. Mailman hosted a weekly radio program, "No Strings Attached”, on 90.1 FM KCSC Edmond-Oklahoma City/ 91.9 KBCW McAlester during which time he wrote and produced 180 new shows.
Dr. Mailman is the founder and owner of CJ Studios in Oklahoma City where he writes songs and records them playing all of the instruments and singing all of the vocals. His songs are on Spotify, , Apple Music, iTunes, and Amazon Music.
Dr. Mailman is a native of Denton, Texas. He earned his bachelor of music and master of music degrees from Northwestern University where he studied with John P. Paynter. He earned his doctorate in conducting at the University of North Texas where he studied with Eugene Corporon and Anshel Brusilow. His father, Dr. Martin Mailman, was Composer-in-Residence at the University of North Texas for thirty-four years. His mother, Mary Nan Mailman, a student of Rosina Lhévinne at the Juilliard School of Music, was a concert pianist and teacher also at the University of North Texas.