MARTÍN ALEXANDER ARELLANO is an award-winning conductor and composer of Nicaraguan-Mexican descent, recognized for his dynamic leadership across opera, symphonic, and contemporary repertoire. A multi-laureate of the 2024 and 2025 American Prizes in Music, he received top honors in Opera Conducting and additional national recognition in Conducting Community Orchestras, Wind Ensembles, Musical Theater, and in Performance of American Music. In 2023, he was awarded Second Jury Prize at the Opéra de Baugé International Conducting Competition in France.

Alex serves as the Conductor and newly appointed Artistic Director of the Santa Clarita Symphony Orchestra in California and is the founder of the North Bay Chamber Orchestra in Tampa. Alex was invited as a guest Music Director with the St. Pete Opera in both 2025 & 2026. His programming reflects a commitment to artistic excellence, audience engagement, and the championing of contemporary and American voices.

Internationally trained in both Europe and the United States, Alex earned his professional conducting diploma (COP) at the Strasbourg Conservatoire in France, where he studied with Miguel Etchegoncelay and Theodor Guschlbauer. He holds additional degrees from the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and the University of Iowa.

Alex’s operatic work includes conducting performances of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The HMS Pinafore and Domenico Chimarosa’s Il matrimonio segreto , as well as assisting major university and professional productions. He has appeared as a Conducting Fellow with the Allentown Symphony Orchestra and the Miami Symphony Orchestra, and has participated in the Pierre Monteux Festival, collaborating with internationally recognized conductors including Ludovic Morlot.

As a composer, Alex has written for wind ensemble, symphony orchestra, and chamber ensembles, and was a finalist in The Florida Orchestra’s Student Composer Competition. His dual perspective as conductor and composer informs an interpretive approach rooted in structural clarity, stylistic fluency, and contemporary relevance.

A native Spanish speaker fluent in French, Alex brings an international outlook to his work and is committed to expanding the orchestral canon through innovative programming and cross-cultural artistic dialogue.