Conductor's Art

Dr. Sarah McKoin serves as Director of Bands, Professor of Music, and Chair of the Conducting and Ensembles Area at Texas Tech University, where she leads the graduate conducting program and oversees a vibrant and comprehensive band curriculum. Under her direction, the Symphonic Wind Ensemble has been featured at prestigious events including The Midwest Clinic, Texas Music Educators Association, North American Saxophone Alliance, College Music Society, and CBDNA conferences.

Her ensembles are featured on commercial recordings with Naxos, Albany, and Mark Records, including the world premiere recording of Chen Yi's Suite for Cello and Wind Ensemble, a project praised widely for both its artistic merit and execution. One reviewer noted, "The playing of the Texas Tech University Symphonic Wind Ensemble is strikingly good, even in the complexities Chen poses." Additionally, she premiered the recorded version of Narong Prangcharoen's Chakra on his debut commercial release, Phenomenon, a collection featuring works for piano, strings, orchestra, and winds.

A passionate advocate for contemporary music and education, Dr. McKoin has collaborated with some of today's most significant composers and artists, including Viet Cuong, Michael Daugherty, Michael Colgrass, John Mackey, Steven Stucky, Nicole Piunno, Will Healy, David Biedenbender, Steven Bryant, Lindsey Kesselman, Joseph Lulloff, and the Aruna Saxophone Quartet, among others. Recent recordings of Cuong's Deciduous and Second Nature, performed with the Aruna Saxophone Quartet, can be heard on the composer's website as reference performances.

Highly sought as a guest conductor and clinician, Dr. McKoin's work has taken her across the United States and internationally to Australia, Canada, China, Thailand, Taiwan, and Israel, where she served as producer for the world premiere recording of Roberto Sierra's Fantasia Correliana with the Castellani-Andriaccio Guitar Duo and the Israeli Chamber Orchestra. She regularly teaches at the Interlochen Arts Academy and recently joined the faculty for Music in the Marche, a summer opera training program in Mondavio, Italy, where she is launching a new chamber music initiative for instrumentalists.

Prior to her appointment at Texas Tech, Dr. McKoin held positions at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music, SUNY Buffalo, SUNY Fredonia, and the Brevard Music Center. She is a Yamaha Master Educator, a past President of the Southwest Division of the College Band Directors National Association, and former President of the Big 12 Band Directors Association. Her professional affiliations include the American Bandmasters Association, Texas Music Educators Association, Texas Bandmasters Association, Phi Beta Mu, and Pi Kappa Lambda. She also serves as faculty sponsor for the service fraternities Kappa Kappa Psi and Tau Beta Sigma. 

Award-winning conductor and music educator, Dr. Kira Omelchenko serves as the Director of Orchestras and Associate Professor of Music at James Madison University (JMU). In this role, she provides artistic and administrative leadership for the university’s orchestra program, conducts the Symphony Orchestra, oversees the Chamber Orchestra and Opera Orchestra and mentors their conductors. Dr. Omelchenko also leads the graduate orchestral conducting curriculum where she teaches a studio of graduate conducting students. In addition, she serves as the Artistic Director of the annual JMU Summer String Camp.

Prior to joining JMU, Dr. Omelchenko served as Associate Dean of Performance and Recruitment, Associate Professor of Music, and the Conductor of the Symphony Orchestra at Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty of Music (Ontario, Canada). From 2014-2019 Dr. Omelchenko was the Director of the Orchestra and String Studies at Florida Southern College and served as the Director of Orchestra and Strings at The University of Tampa from 2012-2024. A passionate educator, Dr. Omelchenko was nominated for a Grammy Music Educator Award, the Laurier Innovation in Teaching Award, and was the recipient of the prestigious 2018 FSC Miller Distinguished Professor Award.

Dr. Omelchenko received a prestigious Fulbright Scholar Award in 2023-24 where she lived in New Zealand for five months conducting, teaching, and mentoring students, collaborated with local composers, and conducted research in the National Library of New Zealand. During her Fulbright, she was also a visiting scholar and artist-in-residence at The New Zealand School of Music—Te Kōkī, at Victoria University, in Wellington, New Zealand. 

Most recently Dr. Omelchenko was a guest conductor and teacher at the 2026 and 2025 Sofia Arts and New Music Festival (Bulgaria) with the Sofia Philharmonic and has been invited to permanently join its conducting staff. Recent engagements include concerts with National Symphony Orchestra (Peru) at the Musicantes Festival, guest conducting the 2026 American Viola Society National Festival, and conducting numerous All County Festivals and Honor Orchestras in Virginia, Maryland, and New York. Her previous conducting engagements also include Carnegie Hall, the Vienna Opera Academy, Oregon and Florida All-State Orchestras, Orlando All-County Orchestra, Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, Waterloo Chamber Players, Prince Edward Island Symphony Orchestra, leading the 2025 ASTA National Conference Director’s Orchestra, and conducting residencies in Thailand, South Korea, China, Australia, and New Zealand. Upcoming invitations include conducting the 2026-27 All-State Orchestras in Texas, California, and Kansas. 

Winner of the International Conductors Workshop and Competition, Dr. Omelchenko is currently a finalists for the 2026 National American Prize in Music, for the Vytautas Marijosius Memorial Award in Orchestral Programming, which recognizes and rewards the best achievement in the unique field of orchestral programming, where the selection of repertoire by knowledgeable, creative and courageous music directors builds orchestras and audiences, educates young people and adults, and enriches the community.  She was also the 2022 recipient of the Ernst Bacon Memorial Award for the Performance of American Music, a finalist in the 2022 Virtual concert production category, and is a past prize winner in Opera Conducting category.  

As the 2017 winner of the International Institute for Conductors in Bulgaria, Dr. Omelchenko conducted the Vidin State Philharmonic Orchestra in a Concerto Festival and was invited back to guest conduct in their following season. In the summers of 2019 and 2018, Dr. Omelchenko served as artist in residence and guest conductor at the University of Aveiro (Portugal) where she mentored graduate conducting students and conducted the University Orchestra. During her residency in Portugal, she was also invited as a guest lecturer and conducting mentor at the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Castilla y León in Salamanca, Spain. In addition, she served as the string director at the International Opera Performing Experience Festival in Mercatello sul Metauro (Italy) in July 2019.

Additional guest conducting appearances include conducting the 2021 Florida All-State Honors Orchestra, the Gwinnett Symphony Chamber Symphony (Georgia), the Imperial Symphony Orchestra (Florida), the Seasons Music Festival Orchestra in Yakima, Washington, and the Bulgarian State Opera in Burgas. In 2015 Dr. Omelchenko was selected to participate in a conducting festival in St. Petersburg, Russia where she conducted the orchestra in the historic Mariinsky Theatre. She has held international conducting fellowships and has studied in Vienna, Rotterdam and Amsterdam conservatories in the Netherlands and Bulgaria. She has also participated in conducting workshops with Gustav Meier, Ulrich Nicolai, Toby Purser, Alessandro Pagliazzi, and Harold Farberman.

A passionate global educator, Dr. Omelchenko has led students in a variety of study and performance abroad opportunities, including travels to Italy, Russia, Bulgaria, and Portugal. She has worked with middle school and high school students in Summer Orchestra Music Camps at the University of Iowa, The University of Tampa, and Florida Southern College where she served as the director from 2014-2019. As a highly sought-after clinician she has adjudicated for Florida Orchestra Association, Music USA Festival at Universal Studios in Orlando, Brightparks Travel Festivals, and OrlandoFest, and has conducted various All-County Orchestra Festivals.

As a collaborative leader in community engagement, she has served on Faculty Senate and the Board of Directors for the Imperial Symphony Orchestra and the St. Augustine Youth Orchestra. As an advocate for diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, Dr. Omelchenko serves on the orchestra panel for And We Were Heard (AWWH), an organization that brings quality recordings of works by underrepresented composers, and is a mentor for Girls Who Conduct, a program that encourages the upcoming generation of women, women-identifying, and non-binary conductors.

Recognized for her research and contribution to her field, Dr. Omelchenko has been awarded numerous research grants including the JMU CVPA College of Visual and Performing Arts Cultural Connection Grant, JMU CVPA Faculty Professional Development Grant, Laurier Student Life Levy, Laurier Research Grant, Ontario Arts Grants, American String Teachers Association Grants, Sigma Alpha Iota Professional Development Grants, FSC Faculty Summer Stipend and Professional Grants, FSC Faculty and Student Collaboration Grant, as well as the University of Tampa Alumni, Dana, and the David Delo Research Professor Grants.

As a recipient of the Sigma Alpha Iota Conducting Scholarship, Dr. Omelchenko has presented research at international, national, and state conferences including the International Conference on Arts & Humanities (IAFOR), The National Society for Experiential Education (NSEE), National Association for Music Education (NAfME), American String Teachers Association (ASTA), College Orchestra Directors Association (CODA), Florida Music Education Association (FMEA), Virginia Music Education Association (VMEA), and the Viriginia American String Teachers Association (VASTA).

Dr. Omelchenko’s research on health and music has been published in Health Education Journal (SAGE publications, UK) and her research on New Zealand symphonic composers have been published in the International Conductors Guild Journal and the College Orchestra Directors Association (CODA) Journal.  Her development and innovation of ensemble curriculum have been published in College Orchestra Directors Association (CODA) Journal, Music Educators Journal (MEJ), Advances in Online Education Journal (AOE), and The International Academic Forum (IAFOR International Arts & Humanities, 2022). She has been a contributing author for Wenger Music Corporation and Sigma Alpha Iota (SAI) Panpipes magazine. 

A native of Kansas, Dr. Omelchenko holds a bachelor’s degree in degree in music and theatre with a dance concentration from Knox College, a master’s degree in orchestral conducting from the University of New Mexico, and a doctoral degree in orchestral conducting from the University of Iowa, where she studied with William LaRue Jones.

• Dimitri Shostakovich, Symphony No. 5 (All Movements) 

• Samuel Barber, Adagio for Strings
• Gustav Holst, Brook Green Suite

• Vincent Persichetti, Divertimento (All Movements)
• Frank Ticheli, Lux Perpetua
• Percy Grainger, Children's March
• Paul Hindemith, March from Symphonic Metamorphosis

• Charles Ives, The Alcotts
• James David, Symphony No. 2 "The Road is Life" (All Movements)
• Johann DeMeij, Gandolf from Symphony No. 1 "Lord of the Rings"

• Wind Octet - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, The Marriage of Figaro, Vol. 2
• Wind Octet - Jonathan Dove, Figures in the Garden