Our Artistic Director and Conductor

Dr. Michelle Perrin Blair

American Prize-winning conductor Michelle Perrin Blair engages diverse ensembles and audiences across a variety of genres and styles, including symphony orchestra, musical theatre, new music, and educational ensembles.

As a performer, Blair's two passions are community engagement and new music. She is in her first full season as Artistic Director and Conductor of the New Texas Symphony Orchestra, and she conducts for the interdisciplinary arts organization, Emerge Arts Coalition (Dallas, Texas). Through both of these organizations, Blair strives to make classical music accessible, relatable, and meaningful for all. A decades-long advocate for new music, Blair recently recorded Durward Contemporary Chamber

Ensemble's second album, Prophetic Revolutions (2022), debuted the Echoes of a Memory commission project for The Sixth Floor Museum, honoring the 60th anniversary of JFK's assassination (Nov 2023), and appeared on the podium of the Texas New Music Festival (July 2024). Blair is committed to working with living composers and supporting their work through commissions, performances, and recordings.

An active teacher and clinician, Blair serves as Principal Guest Conductor of American Festival for the Arts, appears on the TPSMEA circuit, and provides regular workshops and clinics for DFW-area middle and high schools. Blair owns and operates Lark Music Loft in downtown Carrollton, where music-makers of all ages and levels can come to deepen their love and study of music.

Blair holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Houston Moores School of Music, where she studied orchestral conducting with Maestro Franz Anton Krager and served as Assistant Director of the AURA Contemporary Ensemble under Dr. Rob Smith for three years. Blair earned her Master of Music degree in conducting from the University of Texas at Arlington under the tutelage of her lifelong mentor, Dr. Clifton Evans. An active violinist, she holds a Bachelor of Music degree in violin performance from Southwestern University, and Blair studied violin under Andrzej Grabiec, Martha Walvoord, Eri Lee Lam, and Rodica Gonzalez.

Blair resides in Dallas, Texas, with her husband and two children.