Dr. Martha Placeres, is the new Director of Orchestra and String Studies at Florida Southern College. She has been featured with different orchestras in the US, Mexico, Italy, Germany, and Austria. Since 2014 she is the Executive Director of the Orchestra and Band Conducting Symposium at the Puebla State Conservatory of Music, where she teaches orchestral conducting to band and orchestra conductors and students from all major music schools in the region. As a clinician she is regularly invited to present workshops for several schools in the Topeka-Kansas City area, Texas, Mexico, and Germany. As a certified member of the Texas Music Adjudicators Association (TMAA) and Kansas State High School Adjudicators Association (KSHSAA), she is a regular adjudicator for Solo & Ensemble, and Concert & Sight Reading contests. Her awards include “Woman of the Year in the Arts” from the State of Puebla (2009), “Exceptional Merit Award” (2010) from the University of Texas at Brownsville, and the “Royal Decree” from the city of Cholula (2016) for her contributions to the culture and arts in the state.
As part of her concert tour during 2018, she conducted concerts with “Binational Youth Symphony Orchestra Germany-Mexico” in both countries, as well as concerts with the Voghera String Orchestra in Italy. Previously she hold the position of Director of Orchestra and String Studies at the University of Texas at Brownsville and Washburn University.
She has a Bachelors Degree from the Puebla State Conservatory of Music in Violin Performance, a Masters Degree in Music Education from the University of Texas at Brownsville and a Doctorate in Orchestral Conducting from Texas Tech University.