Music Director
William McClain
Music Director
Conductor and violist William James McClain is
Music Director and Conductor of the Millikin-Decatur Symphony Orchestra and the Millikin
Chamber Orchestra. He has appeared in major venues across the United States and abroad
including Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, and the Sheremetev Palace in Saint
Petersburg Russia. In the spring of 2006, he conducted Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite with the
Macon Symphony Orchestra in Georgia as the 2005 winner of the International Conductors
Workshop and Festival Competition. He has conducted professional, community, and talented
youth orchestras for over twenty years and continues to be passionate about the education of
the next generation of musicians.
As a violist he has recorded with the Augusta Symphony Orchestra and the Adriane
String Quartet (faculty string quartet at Ithaca College), and maintains an active solo and
chamber music recital schedule most recently presenting a solo recital for the 2021/22 Keiser
Concert Series at the prestigious St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire. He is currently a member
of the Augusta Symphony Orchestra and the Savannah Philharmonic Orchestra in Georgia.
Dr. McClain has been a sought-after string teacher and adjudicator in Illinois, Georgia,
Michigan, New York, Texas, Washington D.C., and California both as a guest conductor and
serving as an adjudicator for numerous competitions, workshops, and festivals. He is the former
Strings Coordinator and Director of Orchestras at Georgia College and State University and has
taught viola and violin at Huston Tillotson College as an adjunct faculty member and at Mercer
University as a guest artist.
A native of Washington D.C., he is currently an Associate Professor of Music at Millikin
University in Decatur, Illinois. Dr. McClain received degrees in orchestral conducting and viola
performance from The University of Maryland at College Park, Ithaca College, and The University
of Texas at Austin.
For more information, please visit William’s website: williammcclainconductor.com
