Dr. Matthew Mailman
Conductor, Oklahoma Youth Winds
Dr. Matthew Mailman is Professor of Conducting in the Wanda L. Bass School of Music at Oklahoma City University, 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 OCU's award-winning Wind Ensemble and Wind Philharmonic and a Music Director for the Oklahoma Opera and Music Theater Company.
At OCU, Dr. Mailman has conducted fifty-seven operas and musicals and has led the Wind Ensemble and Wind Philharmonic in eighteen world premieres, on seven tours, at two OK Mozart Festivals, and at ten convention performances. He teaches graduate and undergraduate conducting and coordinates OCU's Masters in Conducting program.
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 nine 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.
A champion of new music, he has collaborated with many significant composers, including Nico Muhly, Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate, Catherine Likhuta, Michael Daugherty, Frank Ticheli, Karel Husa, Jack Stamp, Martin Mailman, Ron Nelson, Judy Bozone, Brian Balmages, Edward Knight, and Cindy McTee.
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 is a frequent convention clinician and has presented at conventions in Texas, Ohio, Vermont, South Carolina, and Oklahoma.
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, YouTube, 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.