Chris Tran

Chris Tran is Music Director of the University of Texas University Orchestra and Graduate Teaching Assistant for the University of Texas Orchestras and is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts in orchestral conducting with Farkhad Khudyev at the University of Texas at Austin. 

Prior to this appointment, Mr. Tran taught for seven years in the Texas public school system as an orchestra director in the Plano, Highland Park, and Clear Creek Independent School Districts. Under his direction, the Clear Falls High School Symphony Orchestra placed 4th in the 2024 Texas Music Educators Association Honor Orchestra Contest. He is an in-demand clinician and adjudicator throughout the state of Texas and has served in many roles with the Texas Music Educators Association and the University Interscholastic League. 

Mr. Tran has also been an invited conductor at several masterclasses and workshops in Boulder, Los Angeles, Eugene, St. Andrews (Scotland), as well as the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music with Cristian Măcelaru, Thomas Sleeper, and Leonard Slatkin, and the International Conducting Workshop and Festival with the late Larry Rachleff and Donald Schleicher. He has also worked with conductors Neil Thomson, Jeff Grogan, and Sian Edwards.

Mr. Tran earned a Master of Music in Orchestral Conducting from the University of Colorado Boulder (CU-Boulder) with Gary Lewis. At CU-Boulder, he also studied opera conducting with Nicholas Carthy and violin with the late Charles Wetherbee, former concertmaster of the Boulder Philharmonic. Prior to this, he earned a Bachelor of Music in Music Education summa cum laude from Southern Methodist University, studying conducting with Paul Phillips and violin with Diane Kitzman, former Principal Violin of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.