Julie Desbordes, DMA

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Multidimensional conductor and educator Dr. Julie Desbordes leads ensembles in the Americas, Asia, and her native France. Music director of the Philharmonia Orchestra at Arizona State University, where she teaches conducting, she is also music director of three additional ensembles in greater Phoenix: the Symphony of the Southwest, the Salt River Brass, and the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Phoenix Youth Symphony Orchestras.
 

Prior to arriving in Arizona, Dr. Desbordes conducted community and youth orchestras in New York City, among them, the Turtle Bay Youth Orchestra, the Queer Urban Orchestra, and the Chelsea Symphony. With those ensembles, she presented innovative programs that attracted large, enthusiastic audiences. In between her New York commitments, she appeared as a guest conductor with orchestras in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Venezuela, and Cuba.

 

Active in the El Sistema movement, she was a featured cast member in the documentary film, Crescendo! The Power of Music, directed by Jamie Bernstein, and she is a frequent guest conductor and teaching artist for youth ensembles internationally. Moreover, since 2019, she has regularly led workshops for educators at the Weill Music Institute of Carnegie Hall, applying the Institute’s Great Music Teaching Framework.

 

Dr. Desbordes holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Orchestral Conducting from the Peabody Conservatory of The Johns Hopkins University, where she studied under Marin Alsop. She previously earned master’s and bachelor’s degrees in conducting and trumpet performance from conservatoires in France and Canada.