Staff & Board

Melody Mikkelsen

Executive Director

Melody Mikkelsen (she/her) believes high-quality musical experiences for young people can transform futures and communities. A strong voice for performing arts philanthropy, she has led development teams at Portland Opera and Arts for Learning NW. She is a former kindergarten music and beginning band educator, and served as executive director of Oklahoma Youth Orchestras for five years, earning the organization the 2021 Oklahoma Nonprofit Excellence award in arts and humanities. Creative partnerships and elements of fun are hallmarks of Melody’s work. One of her most treasured successes was a $50,000 campaign to pay off the beautifully restored 1931 Fox Theater, celebrated at a Spokane Symphony concert with onstage mortgage burning and confetti cannons.

When she isn’t raising funds and advocating for music education (and sometimes while she is), Melody enjoys playing bassoon and recorders with her husband Cris, who specializes in clarinet and conducting. They have three young children and two shiba inu pups.

Juan Felipe Molano

Music Director & YSO Conductor

Juan Felipe Molano (he/him/el) brings twenty years of vibrant teaching and performing experience to the position of SYSO Music Director. His career includes conducting positions with top professional and youth orchestras throughout Europe, the United States, Asia, South, and Central America. Since 2014, he has served as Conductor of Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA), a program of the Los Angeles Philharmonic that puts the transformative power of music-making into the hands of young people who would not otherwise have access to it. Maestro Molano joined SYSO in 2019, and in that time has overseen meaningful programmatic changes including increased access between SYSO’s educational programs, greater inclusion in the concert hall, both artistically and socially, and most notably led SYSO through the height of the COVID-19 pandemic with creative and diligent programming.