Music Department - Montgomery College - Rockville Campus

Faculty & Staff

Pablo Saelzer

Conductor Pablo Saelzer made his first Washington, D.C, conducting appearance in 2005 in the Terrace Theater at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, with the orchestra of the venerable Friday Morning Music Club (fmmc.org). As the FMMC orchestra’s Music Director and Conductor since then, he directs all its concerts in the metropolitan area, including its yearly Kennedy Center performance. In demand in both the United States and South America, Mr. Saelzer guest conducted at the Music on the Mountains Festival in Poços de Caldas in Brazil; the Orquesta Clásica in Santiago, Chile; and the Mississippi All-State Orchestra, all in 2008.

Throughout his career, Mr. Saelzer has been active in music education as well as in orchestral and chamber music performance. He currently conducts the Sinfonia of the Maryland Classical Youth Orchestras (mcyo.org) and is Music Director of the Mississippi Symphony’s Premier Orchestra Institute. In addition he is a faculty member at The Levine School of Music. An accomplished violinist and violist, he performs with diverse professional ensembles in the D.C./Baltimore area, including the National Philharmonic Orchestra and the Concert Artists of Baltimore.

Mr. Saelzer made his conducting debut with the Symphony Orchestra of Concepción, in his native Chile. He also served on the faculty of the Music Conservatory of the Universidad Austral in Valdivia, where he taught violin and viola. In the United States he has been Music Director and Conductor of the Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra in Jackson, Mississippi, and guest conductor with the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra; the Southeastern Music Center Orchestra in Columbus, Georgia; and the University of Southern Mississippi (USM) Symphony Orchestra. He also served as Artistic Director and Conductor of the Mississippi Youth Symphony Orchestra program and taught chamber music and conducting at USM. In 2004 Mr. Saelzer conducted Mozart’s The Magic Flute throughout the state of Mississippi as the guest Music Director of the Southern Opera and Music Theatre. As Assistant Conductor of the University of Southern Mississippi Symphony Orchestra in Hattiesburg, he premiered a number of works and had the honor of collaborating with such distinguished musicians as Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Jean-Pierre Rampal, and Ray Charles, among others. During Mr. Saelzer’s time in Mississippi, many of his performances were broadcast on Mississippi Public Radio.

Mr. Saelzer studied at the Music Conservatory in Valdivia, Chile, and at the Kantorei St. Martini in Bremen, Germany. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Universidad Austral de Chile and a Master of Music degree from Columbus State University in Georgia.

For more information about the Metropolitan Orchestra @ Montgomery College, please visit metropolitanorchestramc.org.

Department of Music ▪ Montgomery College ▪ Rockville Campus ▪ 51 Mannakee Street ▪ Rockville, MD ▪ 20850
(240) 567-5209 ▪ http://www.montgomerycollege.edu/Departments/musicrv/