Our conductor, Dr. Thomas Cockrell, is the director of the James E. Rogers Institute for Orchestral and Opera Conducting established at The University of Arizona School of Music. Dr. Cockrell has served as the Nelson Riddle Endowed Chair in Music, director of orchestral activities and music director of the UA Opera Theater since 2000. Cockrell frequently is the conductor for regional and all-state music festivals nationwide and is increasingly sought after for conducting master courses in the USA, Asia and Europe.

Cockrell is equally at home on the symphonic podium and in the opera pit, working with professionals or student musicians. He has conducted the professional symphony orchestras of Dallas, Cincinnati, Phoenix, Tucson, Louisville, Boulder, and several in Romania, Italy and South Korea. Operatic credits include productions for Dayton Opera, Opera Colorado, Opera Theatre of the Rockies and Washington D.C.'s Summer Opera Theatre. He served as the associate conductor of Cincinnati Opera, Opera Colorado, The Colorado Symphony Orchestra and the Spoleto Festivals and music director of Denver Young Artists Orchestra. From 2003-2005 he was music director of Opera in the Ozarks in Eureka Springs, Arkansas and has served on conducting faculty of the Interlochen Center for the Arts.

Cockrell earned his Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music degrees from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and a Bachelor of Arts from Yale University. He studied conducting with Franco Ferrara in Rome and at Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy. Additionally, he was an Aspen Conducting Fellow and completed advanced training at the Conservatoire Américain in Fontainebleau, France and the Tanglewood Music Center, where he worked with Gustav Meier, Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa.