DONATE
TICKETS

MUSIC DIRECTOR SEARCH

MEET THE MUSIC DIRECTOR CANDIDATES

The Plano Symphony Orchestra’s Music Director Search Committee Co-Chairs Nancy Freeman and Craig Barber today announced the finalists for the Symphony’s Music Director search. The five finalists are Mélisse Brunet, Filippo Ciabatti, Gonzalo Farias, Jacob Joyce, and Stilian Kirov. Each candidate will rehearse and conduct the Plano Symphony Orchestra sometime during the 2026/2027 Season. The new Music Director will be announced in May 2027.

The PSO’s founding Music Director and conductor Maestro Héctor Guzmán announced two years ago that he wished to transition to Music Director Emeritus of the PSO, allowing him more freedom to pursue guest conducting opportunities. Maestro Guzmán will return to conduct the PSO from time to time.

Five finalists for the Music Director position will join us during our 2026-27 season, and you will have an important voice in helping us to choose our next musical leader! Each candidate will conduct one concert. The audience will be surveyed after each performance, and your feedback will be reviewed as we make our decision.

Read the full press release here

The Finalists:

Mélisse Brunet

Renowned as a conductor of “uncommon emotional intensity” (Marie-Celine) and a “force at the podium” (Eugene Scene), American conductor Mélisse Brunet is a native of Paris, France with Spanish and Italian roots. She is quickly gaining attention on both sides of the Atlantic as “a skilled and polished conductor with an excellent pedigree… Brunet led the orchestra with panache and clarity, giving inspiring and assured renditions of each work.” (Cleveland Classical). 

Read More

Filippo Ciabatti​

Filippo Ciabatti is a dynamic and versatile conductor who enjoys a multifaceted career. He has been praised for his “sensitive and nuanced” musicianship and for delivering performances “with admirable sweep and tension.” A native of Florence, Italy, he has conducted orchestras across Europe and the Americas, including the Delaware Symphony Orchestra, Irving Symphony Orchestra (TX), Macon-Mercer Symphony Orchestra (GA), Park ICM Orchestra (MO)…

Read More

Gonzalo Farias

Gonzalo Farias, Associate Conductor of the Houston Symphony, is an imaginative and engaging orchestral leader, award-winning pianist, and dedicated educator. Praised for his “clear, engaging style with a lyrical, almost Zen-like quality,” he is recognized as “a focused, musical artist who knows what he wants and how to get it—with grace and substance.” He has held conducting posts with the Kansas City Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony…

Read More

Jacob Joyce

Currently serving as the Associate Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the Music Director of the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra. Jacob Joyce is quickly gaining recognition as a dynamic and innovative presence on the podium. He recently concluded his tenure as the Resident Conductor of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and has appeared across the country with orchestras including the Detroit, St. Louis, Houston, Nashville, Kansas City…

Read More

Stilian Kirov

First Prize Winner of the “Debut Berlin” Concert Competition, Stilian Kirov made his debut at the Berlin Philharmonic in 2017. The same year, he began his tenure as Music Director of the Illinois Philharmonic in Chicago’s Southland while continuing his music directorship with the Bakersfield Symphony in California. In 2024, Stilian Kirov also joined the Southwest Florida Symphony Orchestra as Interim Artistic Advisor and Principal Conductor. 

Read More

© Copyright 2025   |   Plano Symphony Orchestra

The Plano Symphony Orchestra is funded in part by The City of Plano.
The Plano Symphony Orchestra is a member of the League of American Orchestras, the Texas Orchestra Managers Association, the Texas Association of Symphony Orchestras, the Plano Chamber of Commerce, the McKinney Chamber of Commerce, the Dallas Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Plano Rotary Club and Frisco Chamber of Commerce.
Facebook Twitter Youtube Instagram

Mélisse Brunet

Renowned as a conductor of “uncommon emotional intensity” (Marie-Celine) and a “force at the podium” (Eugene Scene), American conductor Mélisse Brunet is a native of Paris, France with Spanish and Italian roots. She is quickly gaining attention on both sides of the Atlantic as “a skilled and polished conductor with an excellent pedigree… Brunet led the orchestra with panache and clarity, giving inspiring and assured renditions of each work.” (Cleveland Classical). In July 2022, she became the fifth Music Director of the Lexington Philharmonic, and the first woman to hold the position. She is also in her sixth season as the Music Director of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic.

Brunet is one of the five conductors featured in the documentary “Maestra” by the Director Maggie Contreras and produced by David Letterman and Melanie Miller (“Navalny”) – now available on Netflix. “Maestra” garnered 2nd place and the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival Audience Award for Best Documentary. The film’s exploration of Brunet’s daring journey at the international La Maestra competition has received rave reviews in the press, including two articles in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Hollywood Reporter. A passionate speaker on issues ranging from music scholarship to human rights, Brunet has recently appeared as a speaker at venues ranging from the Curtis Institute of Music to the French Embassy.

The 2025/26 season features Brunet’s Carnegie Hall debut in a program of new works leading the American Composers Orchestra. Other upcoming highlights include performances with the Phoenix Symphony, Sacramento Philharmonic, Charlottesville Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic, and Canton Symphony. Recent engagements include those with the Nashville Symphony, Delaware Symphony, Wintergreen Music Festival, New Hampshire Music Festival, Carmel Symphony, Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, the Eugene Symphony, the West Virginia Symphony, and the Orchestre National Avignon-Provence (France).

As a dynamic advocate of contemporary music, Brunet has collaborated with composers such as Shawn Okpebholo (appointing him as the Lexington Philharmonic’s first-ever Black composer-in-residence), Brittany J Green, Mary D. Watkins, T.J. Cole, Steven Stucky, Michael Daugherty, Shulamit Ran, James Barry, Loren Loiacono, and Jennifer Higdon, among others. She also creates her own acclaimed orchestral arrangements, including Dolly Parton’s “Color Me America” and new charts for Joslyn & the Sweet Compression premiering this season.

As an opera and musical theater conductor, Brunet has conducted Dead Man Walking by Jake Heggie and Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi at the Power Center in Ann Arbor; four staged performances of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte; and Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti, Menotti’s The Old Maid and the Thief, Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, and Strauss II’s Die Fledermaus, and two staged performances of Verdi’s La Traviata.

Brunet is a respected educator in both France and the USA. Most recently, she served as the first woman Director of Orchestral Studies at the University of Iowa-School of Music, where she conducted symphonic concerts, operas, and musical theater.

Brunet began her studies on the cello, and learned to play the trumpet, French horn, and piano. She holds six diplomas from the Paris Conservatory, a bachelor’s in music from the Université la Sorbonne, a Professional Studies diploma from the Cleveland Institute of Music, and a Doctorate in conducting from the University of Michigan. As a true citizen of the world and intrepid conversationalist, she speaks English, French, Italian, Chinese, as well as some rusty Spanish, Hebrew, and German.

Filippo Ciabatti

Filippo Ciabatti is a dynamic and versatile conductor who enjoys a multifaceted career. He has been praised for his “sensitive and nuanced” musicianship and for delivering performances “with admirable sweep and tension.” A native of Florence, Italy, he has conducted orchestras across Europe and the Americas, including the Delaware Symphony Orchestra, Irving Symphony Orchestra (TX), Macon-Mercer Symphony Orchestra (GA), Park ICM Orchestra (MO), Portland Symphony Orchestra (ME), San Angelo Symphony Orchestra (TX), Vermont Symphony Orchestra, Aurora Festival Orchestra (Sweden), Orquesta Sinfónica de la Universidad Central (Colombia), and members of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (Italy). In summer 2024, he was awarded the Joel Revzen Conducting Prize and engaged to conduct the Festival Orchestra Napa (CA).​

Ciabatti has collaborated with internationally renowned artists such as Gabriel Cabezas, Ray Chen, Nathan Gunn, David Kim, Tommy Mesa, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and Time for Three. An advocate of contemporary music, he commissioned a cello concerto by Noah Luna, which aired on NPR’s From the Top. He has also promoted cross-genre collaborations, such as premiering a secular oratorio by jazz composer Taylor Ho Bynum and hosting MacArthur Fellow Tomeka Reid for a performance of her cello concerto.

In October 2023, Ciabatti was named Assistant Conductor of Boston Baroque, the first such appointment in the prestigious ensemble’s 50-year history. This season, he will return to guest conduct their celebrated annual performance of Handel’s Messiah. He is also the founding Artistic Director of Upper Valley Baroque, a professional orchestral and choral ensemble, which after only four seasons has already received critical acclaim and regularly performs to sold-out houses.

Equally at home in opera, Ciabatti is the Music Director of the Opera Company of Middlebury, where he made his debut with a production of Fidelio in June 2023. He has also conducted productions with Opera North (NH) and the Lyric Theatre at Illinois, including Tosca, Madama Butterfly, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Don Giovanni (starring and directed by Nathan Gunn).

Ciabatti is also an accomplished coach and collaborate pianist. He was on the faculty of Opera Viva! (Verona, Italy) for several seasons, and he joined the Seagle Festival (NY) faculty this summer. He has played for masterclasses with Renée Fleming, Isabel Leonard, and William Matteuzzi, and has served as a vocal coach at institutions such as the Cherubini Conservatory, Florence Opera Academy, and Maggio Musicale Formazione.

Ciabatti holds advanced degrees in piano, choral conducting, and orchestral conducting from both Italy and the United States. In 2018, he was a Conducting Fellow at the Aurora Music Festival (Sweden) under Jukka-Pekka Saraste. A dedicated educator, he serves as the Director of Orchestral and Choral Activities at the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College. He won The American Prize in Conducting (college/university division) in 2021. He resides in Vermont with his wife Francesca, their toddler Gianluca, and their cat Sofia.

Gonzalo Farias

Gonzalo Farias, Associate Conductor of the Houston Symphony, is an imaginative and engaging orchestral leader, award-winning pianist, and dedicated educator. Praised for his “clear, engaging style with a lyrical, almost Zen-like quality,” he is recognized as “a focused, musical artist who knows what he wants and how to get it—with grace and substance.”

He has held conducting posts with the Kansas City Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony, Virginia Symphony Orchestra, and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. As Music Director of the Joliet Symphony Orchestra, he strengthened community connections through innovative programming, pre-concert lectures, and bilingual collaborations, including a narrated performance of Bizet’s Carmen.

Recent and upcoming appearances include the Nashville Symphony, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Buffalo Philharmonic, Tallahassee Symphony, and the Houston Symphony, where in 2024 he conducted the world premiere of Arturo Márquez’s Guitar Concerto with Pablo Sainz-Villegas.

He was one of six conductors chosen for the prestigious Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview, presented by the League of American Orchestras, and was appointed by the National Endowment for the Arts as a grant review panelist.

Born in Santiago de Chile, Farias began piano studies at age five. He earned his bachelor’s degree at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and continued his education at the New England Conservatory, studying under Wha-Kyung Byun and Russell Sherman. He has won prizes at the Claudio Arrau International Piano Competition, Maria Canals, and Luis Sigall competitions. His conducting mentors include Donald Schleicher, Marin Alsop, Larry Rachleff, and Otto-Werner Mueller.

Beyond performance, Farias is committed to reimagining music as a force for personal growth, dialogue, cooperation, and community-building. His doctoral dissertation, Logical Predictions and Cybernetics, examines Cornelius Cardew’s The Great Learning to explore music-making as a self-organizing system. Influenced by Zen Buddhist practice and second-order cybernetics, he views music as a shared space where performers and audiences co-create meaning, reflecting on our shared human condition.

Jacob Joyce

Currently serving as the Associate Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the Music Director of the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra. Jacob Joyce is quickly gaining recognition as a dynamic and innovative presence on the podium. He recently concluded his tenure as the Resident Conductor of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and has appeared across the country with orchestras including the Detroit, St. Louis, Houston, Nashville, Kansas City, Colorado, and Florida symphonies. Abroad, Joyce has conducted the London Symphony Orchestra, the NDR-Sinfonieorchester, the hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, and the Frankfurt Museumsorchester.

Joyce previously served as the Conducting Fellow for the Fort Worth Symphony, with whom he collaborates frequently, and has also held positions as the Associate Conductor of the Yale Symphony Orchestra, Music Director of the Berkeley College Orchestra, Music Director of the Opera Theater of Yale College, and Cover Conductor of the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston. An avid promoter of contemporary music, he has conducted several premieres of orchestral and operatic works. Joyce is also an advocate for bringing classical music to new audiences. He is the host and creator of the podcast Attention to Detail: The Classical Music Listening Guide, which provides people of all backgrounds with basic techniques for listening to classical music. He is also the host of the PSO’s Disrupt series, which aims to present classical programs in a more social and familiar format.

Joyce studied Orchestral Conducting with Hugh Wolff at the New England Conservatory. He has also received instruction at the Tanglewood Music Center and the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen. In recognition of his work, Joyce was awarded the Robert Spano Conducting Prize at Aspen and was a semifinalist in the LSO Donatella Flick Conducting Competition and the Solti International Conducting Competition. Mr. Joyce graduated from Yale College in 2014, with a B.A. in Music and Economics. He also received a M.M. in Violin Performance from the Yale School of Music in 2015, studying with Syoko Aki.

As a violinist, Jacob Joyce has performed with several orchestras nationwide and was awarded the Broadus Erle Prize for an Outstanding Violinist at the Yale School of Music. He served as the concertmaster of the Yale Symphony Orchestra and performed regularly with the Boston Philharmonic and the Atlantic Symphony. He has previously attended the Tanglewood Music Center, the Bowdoin International Music Festival, and Encore School for Strings.

Stilian Kirov

First Prize Winner of the “Debut Berlin” Concert Competition, Stilian Kirov made his debut at the Berlin Philharmonic in 2017. The same year, he began his tenure as Music Director of the Illinois Philharmonic in Chicago’s Southland while continuing his music directorship with the Bakersfield Symphony in California. In 2024, Stilian Kirov also joined the Southwest Florida Symphony Orchestra as Interim Artistic Advisor and Principal Conductor. As a 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2016 recipient of the Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award, Mr. Kirov has proven to be not only a dynamic artistic director, but also an enthusiastic educator and community leader, continuing to build upon his previous successes as Music Director of Symphony in C in New Jersey as well as Associate Conductor of the Seattle Symphony and Associate Conductor of the Memphis Symphony.

Highlights of Kirov’s guest performances include appearances worldwide with the Israel Camerata, Xi’An Symphony, Minas Gerais Philharmonic Orchestra, Sofia Philharmonic, Leopolis Chamber Orchestra/Ukraine, Orchestra of Colors/Athens, Orchestre Colonne/Paris, Sofia Festival Orchestra, State Hermitage Orchestra/St. Petersburg, Thüringen Philharmonic Orchestra, the Zagreb Philharmonic, the Musical Olympus International Festival in St. Petersburg, and the Victoria Symphony/British Columbia, among others.

In the United States, Kirov has collaborated with the symphonies of Seattle, Memphis, Chautauqua, Omaha, Kalamazoo, South Bend, and West Virginia as well as the Amarillo Symphony, National Repertory Orchestra/Breckenridge, and the Tucson Symphony. Following his highly acclaimed debut in 2012, he also appeared regularly as guest conductor with the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle.

During the 2013/2014 season, Stilian Kirov was engaged as an assistant conductor to Bernard Haitink with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as well as a cover conductor for Stéphane Denève, the late Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Christoph von Dohnányi, and Andrew Davis, all with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Also, during that season, he stepped in to replace Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos with the Seattle Symphony, conducting “spectacular” performances of Orff’s Carmina Burana.

A prize winner at Denmark’s 2015 Malko Competition, Stilian Kirov is the recipient of numerous awards and prizes, including an Emmy Award for the Memphis Symphony’s Soundtrack Project, the Orchestra Preference Award, and Third Prize at the 2010 Mitropoulos Conducting Competition, as well as Juilliard’s Bruno Walter Memorial Scholarship and the Charles Schiff Conducting Award for outstanding achievement. He is also the recipient of France’s 2010 ADAMI Conducting Prize, culminating in a showcase concert at the Salle Gaveau with the Orchestre Colonne. Following the performance, Mr. Kirov was invited to conduct the orchestra’s opening concerts of the 2011/2012 season in Paris.

Mr. Kirov is a graduate of The Juilliard School of Music in orchestral conducting, where he was a student of James DePreist. In 2012, he studied at the Aspen Academy of Conducting, and in 2013, he was one of three Conducting Fellows at the Tanglewood Music Center. In 2010, he was awarded the Chautauqua Music Festival’s David Effron Conducting Fellowship and returned in 2012 and 2018 as a guest conductor. He holds a master’s degree in conducting from the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris, where he studied with Dominique Rouits.

Also a gifted pianist, Stilian Kirov was Gold Medalist of the 2001 Claude Kahn International Piano Competition in Paris.