BIOGRAPHY

Michelle Merrill has been inspiring audiences throughout the country with her sharply detailed and vibrant performances. A passionate and dynamic artist, she is the Music Director of both the Winston Salem Symphony and the Coastal Symphony of Georgia, where she has ignited the growth and expansion of each orchestra’s offerings both on and off the stage.

Ms. Merrill’s growing guest conducting schedule includes recent and upcoming engagements with the National Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Las Vegas Philharmonic, Sarasota Orchestra, and the Round Top Music Festival Institute. In past seasons, she has conducted concerts with the San Francisco Opera, National Arts Centre Orchestra (Ottawa), Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Jacksonville Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, River Oaks Chamber Orchestra (ROCO), Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Toledo Symphony Orchestra, Oklahoma City Philharmonic, West Virginia Symphony, Symphoria (Syracuse), Princeton Symphony Orchestra, Louisiana Philharmonic, Orlando Philharmonic, Sacramento Philharmonic & Opera, Boise Philharmonic, New Music Detroit, and the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic, where she formerly served as the Assistant Conductor from 2012 - 2015.

During her four-year tenure from 2014 - 2018 as the Assistant and then Associate Conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin, Ms Merrill helped plan a wide variety of concerts each season, including the renowned educational webcasts, which have reached over 100,000 students to date in classrooms throughout the nation. Holding the title of Phillip and Lauren Fisher Community Ambassador, Ms. Merrill also gave pre-concert lectures, led adult music education seminars, engaged with students and adults in and around Metro Detroit, spoke on behalf of the DSO throughout the community, and participated in hosting Live from Orchestra Hall, the DSO’s free concert webcast that launched in 2011 and is now watched in more than 100 countries. 

Ms. Merrill is a proud recipient of a 2016 Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award as well as the prestigious 2013 Ansbacher Conducting Fellowship as awarded by members of the Vienna Philharmonic and the American Austrian Foundation, which enabled her to be in residence at the world-renowned Salzburg Festival.  Born in Dallas, TX, she studied conducting with Dr. Paul C. Phillips at Southern Methodist University’s Meadows School of the Arts, where she holds a Master of Music Degree in conducting and a Bachelor of Music in performance. Apart from music, she loves cooking, running, hiking, and spending time outdoors with her husband, Steve Merrill, who serves as the principal percussionist of the Jacksonville Symphony, and their two sons, Davis and Emmett.