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.