Our Music Director

Devin Patrick Hughes is quickly becoming recognized as a leader in classical music audience building, educational outreach and new music premieres, as he works to transform the classical music landscape in which an orchestra interacts with its community. Devin currently serves as Music Director and Conductor of both the Arapahoe Philharmonic and the Boulder Symphony. He previously held conducting positions as Music Director of the Santa Fe Youth Symphony Association and the Denver Contemporary Chamber Players, Resident Conductor of the Denver Philharmonic Orchestra, Assistant Conductor for the Denver Young Artists Orchestra, and a number of other youth and adult orchestra posts. In 2010, he was the only American selected with eleven other conductors worldwide to compete in the 9th Arturo Toscanini International Conducting Competition in Parma, Italy. Devin was a conducting fellow at the American Academy of Conducting in Aspen in 2011.

Devin is actively involved in music education, and has inspired new listeners, young and not-so-young, by engaging students in both the music and the stories behind it. He inaugurated conductor-led talks prior to Arapahoe Philharmonic concerts in 2014, to make classical music more interesting and accessible to our audiences. He developed several other music education programs including a high school apprenticeship program, a community chamber music initiative and play-a-thon, summer camps for kids and adults, and Alexander Technique seminars. He has also chaired multiple competitions nurturing the development of young performers, composers and conductors, and served as clinician for the Saint Vrain Valley All-District Orchestra Festival. Devin often appears in schools as a clinician and speaker, and has taught courses at the Denver Academy for Lifelong Learning, the Music Schools of the University of Denver, Ithaca College in New York, and New Mexico School for the Arts.

Devin is also committed to using music for a greater societal purpose, and has held benefit concerts for organizations such as the Red Cross, Oxfam International, Cultures in Harmony, and the Colorado Haiti Project. He served as an AmeriCorps tutor, mentor and coach for Nothing but Achievers, and arranged African-American spirituals for the Sangamon Valley Youth Symphony to use at the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. March. He partnered to make music more universally accessible through organizations such as I Have a Dream, Circle of Care, and Pinnacle Charter School in Denver.

Devin is a zealous performer and promoter of contemporary classical music, and has fostered multiple composer residency programs premiering dozens of new works. In 2014, the Arapahoe Philharmonic inaugurated the Vincent C. LaGuardia, Jr. Composition Competition, leading to the orchestra’s performance of the winning composition and the commission of several additional works to be premiered in the future. Under Devin’s baton, the Boulder Symphony has also become a resource for premieres of exciting new music throughout the West. In Denver, Devin commissioned and performed multiple musical responses to exhibitions in the Museum of Contemporary Art during Denver Arts Week to highlight local composers and explore the interplay of music, theatre, art, and dance.

Devin is also active in the choral and operatic repertoire, and has made community collaborations a regular part of his orchestral life. Devin has led the Arapahoe Philharmonic in Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Cherry Creek Chorale and Bizet’s Carmen with the Colorado Chorale. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is planned with the Cherry Creek Chorale in 2015.Devin has also collaborated with the Colorado Choral Arts Society on other choral music of Bach, Bruckner, Haydn and Handel. Additionally, Devin has conducted Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Ozie Cargile’s Song for Humanity (a premiere), and Brahms’s German Requiem. He was formerly the conductor of Ball State Opera and has served on the conducting staff for multiple operatic productions.

For more information, visit www.devinpatrickhughes.com.