Clinicians

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Dr. Michael Alexander serves as Associate Professor of String Music Education at Baylor University. He joined the faculty in 2006 after 22 years of teaching orchestra at Stratford HS in Houston, Texas. He holds degrees from Southwestern University (BME), Sam Houston State University (MM), and the University of Houston (DMA). He has conducted every Region Orchestra in Texas and All-State/Honor Groups in Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon,and Pennsylvania. His duties at Baylor University include supervising string student teachers, instruction in classroom string pedagogy, directing the Baylor String Project, and conducting the Baylor Campus Orchestra. He has served as President of the Texas Orchestra Directors Association and Orchestra Vice-President of the Texas Music Educators Association. Awards include: Houston Symphony School Bell Award for Excellence in Teaching, ASTA Elizabeth A.H. Green Award, University of Houston Outstanding Music Alumnus, TODA Orchestra Director of the Year, and Baylor Outstanding Professor Award. He has co-authored the Orchestra Expressions series, Expressive Techniques for Orchestra, and Expressive Sight-Reading for Orchestra. His research is published in the Journal of Research in Music Education, UPDATE: Applications of Research in Music Education, the String Research Journal, Texas Music Education Research, the American String Teacher, and the Southwestern Musician. 

Stephen Heyde is Music Director/Conductor of the Waco Symphony and the Mary Franks Thompson Professor of Orchestral Studies and Conductor-in-Residence at Baylor University. Before assuming his duties at Baylor in 1984, Mr. Heyde was on the violin faculty at West Virginia University from 1975-1984. He is a co-founder of the College Orchestra Directors Association and served as President of the organization from 2006-08 and received the Lifetime Achievement award in January 2018, only the second such award given by CODA. Stephen Heyde made his European debut with the Krakow State Philharmonic in March 1998. Since then, he has conducted in Europe many times including a residency in Budapest, Hungary where he received the prestigious Ferenc Liszt ring.  He has been an invited member of the ensemble juries for the 55th and 57th annual European Music Festival for Young People and recently conducted the Córdoba Symphony Orchestra in Argentina. Stephen Heyde has collaborated with many of the greatest artists of our time, including Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Renée Fleming, Joshua Bell, Emanuel Ax, Midori, James Ennis, André Watts, Henry Mancini, Burt Bacharach, Doc Severinson, Art Garfunkle and Chris Botti among many others. Heyde has conducted All State Orchestras and other festival orchestras in numerous states around the country. Under Mr. Heyde’s direction, the Baylor Symphony has performed eight times at the Texas Music Educators Clinic/Convention, appeared at the prestigious Piccolo Festival and at national conferences of the American String Teachers Association and CODA and was featured in a nationally televised PBS Special. This year, the BSO was named winner of the coveted American Prize for an unprecedented fourth consecutive year. Under Stephen Heyde’s direction, the Baylor Symphony has toured internationally in Costa Rica and Belgium. Stephen Heyde is a recipient of Outstanding Teaching Awards at West Virginia University and Baylor University.