Martha Stoddard
​artistic director & principal conductor
Martha Stoddard has held the position of Artistic Director of the Oakland Civic Orchestra since 1997, and recently has assumed the role of conductor for the newly-formed Piedmont Chamber Orchestra. In February, 2019 Stoddard was named a semi-finalist in the American Prize competition for Conductors, Community Orchestra Division. From 2012-2014 she served as Program Director for the John Adams Young Composers Program at the Crowden Music Center, and is an Associate Conductor of the San Francisco Composers’ Chamber Orchestra.

Her international conducting training has been with conducting mentors Kirk Trevor, Tsung Yeh and Leonid Korchmar; in the USA she completed courses with Harold Farberman and Kenneth Woods and others. Ms. Stoddard has been the Director of Instrumental Music at Lick-Wilmerding High School since 1991 and serves and chair of the Performing Arts Department. Ms. Stoddard is a four-time recipient of AscapPlus Awards and holds music degrees from Humboldt State University and San Francisco State University.

A composer and composer advocate as well, her music has been performed by the Sierra Ensemble, AvenueWinds, San Francisco Choral Artists, San Francisco Composers’ Chamber Orchestra, schwungvoll!, Santa Rosa Repertory Youth Orchestra, Oakland Civic Orchestra, Womensing and Community Women’s Orchestra and in the Bakersfield Symphony New Directions Series, Trinity Chamber Concert Series, the New Music Forum Festival of Contemporary Music, and in London, UK.

Recent commissions have come from the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Sierra Ensemble, Community Women’s Orchestra, Octangle Woodwind Octet. She was awarded a Judges’ Citation from The American Prize celebrating her catalog of compositions as “Music for Use. Well Crafted, Accessible and Performance-Ready.” She is published by Tetractys in London, UK and Shadow Tree Music Publishing in Concord, California.

Christine Brandes
Assistant Conductor

While Christine Brandes has long been held in high esteem as a professional singer of concert and operatic repertoire, she has also felt drawn to the podium. Through her position as head of the Voice and Opera area at SF State University, she has conducted fully staged productions of Handel, Strauss, Mozart and Menotti. Her first professional engagement was a production of Rameau’s Achante et Céphise (Sympathy) with Victory Hall Opera in Charlottesville, Virginia, where she returns in the Fall of 2019 for Haydn’s Armide. Christine made her professional West Coast debut this summer conducting Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice for West Edge Opera.

A noted specialist in baroque performance practice, she is the director of the University Baroque Ensemble at UC Berkeley. Christine has also been the assistant conductor of the Oakland Civic Orchestra for the past year.