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. 

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

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Alex conducted at the Pierre Monteux Festival in 2025 & 2024 where he worked with conductors Tiffany Lu (University of Florida) and Chung Park (St. Olaf College). In 2022, he was invited to serve as a Conducting Fellow for the Allentown Symphony and Artistic Director Diane Wittry. He has attended conducting workshops with the Järvi Family (Pärnu Music Festival), David Hill (The Bach Choir), David Reiland (Orchestre National de Metz), Paul Vermel (Emeritus, Northwest Symphony Orchestra), Neil Thomson (Philharmonic Orchestra of Goiás), Peter Jaffe (Stockton Symphony), and Diane Wittry (Allentown Symphony Orchestra). Alex was also a Conducting Fellow with the Miami Symphony Orchestra with Maestro Eduardo Marturet in the 2016 - 2017 season. 

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As a composer, Alex has written compositions for wind ensemble, symphony orchestra, and various chamber ensembles. He was a finalist in 2019 in the Florida Orchestra’s Student Composer Competition with his work Fantasia on a Song for a Child. Alex has worked with composers including Steven Bryant, Christopher Theofanidis, Victoria Bond, and Avner Dorman. He graduated with his Bachelors Diploma in Music Theory and Composition at the University of Miami's Frost School of Music where he studied with Charles Norman Mason. From 2018 - 2019, Alex served as Assistant Conductor to Shawn Crouch, director of the Frost School of Music’s premier new music ensemble “Ensemble Ibis”. 

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Alex is an alumnus of the Beta Tau chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia at the University of Miami. Alex is a BMI associated composer. 

"Stone is a passionate conductor. He eschews the baton, preferring to use his hands and, indeed, his whole body, to direct the players. He often appeared to be dancing ecstatically to the music, even as he was utterly focused on the players. They responded magnificently, giving this big, warm symphony (Dvorak #6) the treatment it deserves.” Chico, (CA) News and Review

 

“Conductor Brian Stone had everyone’s attention;” Boston Globe

 

“The hero was conductor Brian Stone ...(who) galvanized the Boston Conservatory Orchestra and made musical sense of every bar.” Boston Phoenix

 

Prize-winning conductor and award-winning teacher Brian Stone has worked both in the opera pit and on the concert stage with professional orchestras in California, Missouri, Indiana, Utah, Maryland, Florida, Alaska, Washington, Kansas, Connecticut, Romania, Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria, and students at The University of Maryland, The Johns Hopkins University, Ohio University, Boston Conservatory, University of Mobile, San Diego State University, Stanford University, the National Conservatory of Colombia, The Claremont Colleges (CA), The Catholic University of America, and the All-State Honor Orchestras of Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Southern California, to both public and institutional acclaim.

 

As a young conductor, Brian was chosen to conduct in the League of American Orchestras’ well- known elite 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. In 2008 he received the prestigious Jessie B. DuPont Award in Music Education in recognition of his work and in 2009 he was awarded the “First Honours Diploma” in the 29th Master Players Music Competition.

 

In a decade as director of the University of Delaware Orchestras, Stone developed a three- ensemble area of orchestral activities that doubled the enrollment, tripled the number of performances, and quadrupled the audience. His sophisticated programs, ranging from Baroque to Contemporary, and the Classics to Jazz, Broadway and Hollywood received national recognition. In 2009 the UD Symphony was invited for the first time in their history to perform at the Music Educator’s National Conference convention.

 

Brian began music playing saxophone in the public schools of Santa Monica, California. Already an exceptional player as a youth, he went on to win several competitions. Later, he took up viola and piano, and started composing as well. Stone is a graduate of Bennington College in Vermont, where he studied composition, viola, and literature.

 

In a varied musical life, he has had the honor of working with many extraordinary and highly regarded musicians including: George Perle, Bethany Beardslee, Gilbert Kalish, Leon Fleisher, Karel Husa, Eddie Daniels, Walter Ducloux, Gerard Schwarz, Marvin Hamlisch, Leonard Slatkin, Piero Weiss, John Shirley-Quirk, and Ivan Fischer.

 

Dr. Stone received a Master of Music degree and a Doctorate in conducting from the Peabody Conservatory where he studied with Frederik Prausnitz and Gustav Meier. Additional studies in conducting took place at Le Domaine Forget in Canada with Otto-Werner Mueller and two summers at the Festival at Sandpoint with Gunther Schuller. He also studied with Harvey Pittel on saxophone, Jacob Glick on viola, Bill Dixon in improvisation, and Allen Shawn and Henry Brant in composition.