Martha Stoddard
​artistic director & principal conductor
Martha Stoddard assumed the leadership of the Oakland Civic Orchestra in 1997 and has guided the orchestra through a major transformation over the past two decades. Praised for her clarity, generosity, and vision, she continues to lead the orchestra through the unfolding challenges facing our wider community, while continually striving for artistic excellence.

Ms. Stoddard is a strong advocate for living composers and has conducted many premieres and commissions in multiple orchestras, most recently featuring works by Jessica Krash and Niko Umar Durr.
In 2019 she was named a semi-finalist in the American Prize Competition for Conductors, Community Orchestra Division, and advanced as a finalist in July of 2020. Simultaneously she brought the orchestra into the final round of the Ernst Bacon Prize for the Performance of American Music for their performance of Bruce Reiprich’s Lullaby featuring Christina Owens Walton, violin; J.P. Johnson’s Harlem Symphony; and her own Waltz for the Fun of It.

After a lengthy search spanning the course of the pandemic, Ms. Stoddard was recently named Conductor of the Holy Names University Community Orchestra and commenced with her duties in July 2022 at the same time she was appointed Music Director for the Oakland-based Community Women’s Orchestra. She took the reins as conductor for the newly-formed Piedmont Chamber Orchestra in 2019, and held the position of Resident Conductor for Enriching Lives Through Music from 2017-2019.  From 2012-2014 she served as Program Director for the John Adams Young Composers Program at the Crowden Music Center and has frequently appeared as Associate Conductor of the San Francisco Composer’s Chamber Orchestra, conducting new works by local composers.

​She retired from Lick-Wilmerding High School in 2021 after serving for thirty years as Director of Instrumental Music and the Chair of the Performing Arts and is happily filling up her time with more music and more tennis.
Photo: Henry Dombey

Christine Brandes
AssOCIATE Conductor

Following a distinguished international singing career during which she was acclaimed for her radiant, crystalline voice and superb musicianship across a broad repertoire, Christine Brandes takes to the podium as conductor and garners praise for performances in the opera house and on the symphony stage.

Ms. Brandes is a 2021-2022 fellow of the Dallas Opera Hart Institute for Women Conductors and currently the Associate Conductor of the Oakland Civic Orchestra. She has led productions of Gluck’s Orfeo et Eurydice and Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto with West Edge Opera as well as Haydn’s Armida and Rameau’s La Sympathie with Victory Hall Opera in Charlottesville, Virginia to which she returns in March of 2023 to conduct Gluck’s Orfeo et Eurydice.  Ms. Brandes makes her conducting debut at the Seattle Opera in the fall of 2023 with Handel’s Alcina.

On the concert stage, Ms. Brandes made her debut with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra in the fall of 2022 and her debut performances of Handel’s Messiah with the Virginia Symphony in December of 2022. She has also served as the cover conductor for Nicholas McGegan with the Oakland Symphony.

As a singer, she has sung principal roles for the following opera companies: San Francisco, Seattle, Washington National, Houston Grand, Minnesota, New York City Opera, Philadelphia, Glimmerglass, Portland, among others.

She has also sung with the following orchestras:  Cleveland, Chicago, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Atlanta, Detroit, Seattle, Minnesota, National Symphony, with such distinguished conductors as Sir Simon Rattle, Pierre Boulez, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Nicholas McGegan, among many others.

To read more about Ms. Brandes please visit:  christine-brandes