Dr. Veronica Salinas Lopez holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Violin Performance and a Master’s Degree in Orchestral Conducting from Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, TX. In 2012, she was awarded her Doctorate in Musical Arts in Viola Performance at Texas Tech University under full scholarship as an AT&T Chancellor’s Fellow. 

 

Currently, Dr. Lopez serves as the Director of Orchestras for Bush Middle School in the North East Independent School District. Most formerly, she as appointed as the Artistic Administrator for OPERA San Antonio where she managed daily operations for the company including marketing, grant research, financial management, and contracting.

 

Dr. Lopez worked as the Assistant Professor of Strings at Texas A&M University in Kingsville, Music Director for the Kingsville Symphony Orchestra, and Director of Mariachi Javelina. She has extensive orchestral playing experience and has played violin and viola in various orchestras across the State of Texas. 

 

While in Kingsville she implemented the first ever Strings Project called JAVELINA Strings Youth Orchestra. In this Strings Project, KISD students attend free after school classes to learn to play in orchestra. This also serves as a training ground for college students to gain experiential learning in the orchestra classroom. In her first four years in Kingsville, she secured over $150,000 in funding through grants and fundraising efforts to promote this program as well as outreach initiatives and community programing with the Kingsville Symphony Orchestra. 

 

Dr. Lopez has served as a clinician in the Texas area as the symphony conductor for several regions in Texas including Region 9, Region, 23, Region 14, Region 15, Region 28, and Region 29. She is also a clinician and consultant for many high schools and junior high schools in South Texas on a regular basis. Active as a lecturer in the US, Dr. Lopez often presents session topics relating to pedagogy and performance. She has been a guest presenter at the Texas Music Educators Association Convention in San Antonio, TX (2015, 2018, 2019) and the American Viola Society Festival in Los Angeles, CA (2018).

 

As the Music Director of the Kingsville Symphony Orchestra, Lopez helped to expand the awareness of orchestral literature to the whole community. Through children's programs , speaking engagements, Veterans Appreciation concerts, and Master Series Concerts, she established a new outlet for arts entertainment in the community of Kingsville.

 

Past conducting engagements included conducting fellowships at the Los Angeles Conducting Institute in San Diego, California; Cover Conductor for the Allentown Symphony Orchestra in Allentown, Pennsylvania; Conducting Fellow at the International Conducting Institute in New York City, and Conducting Fellow at the International Conducting Workshop Festival in Sofia, Bulgaria.