James Sepulvado
Conductor
James Sepulvado’s work spans higher education, professional performance, and large-scale community initiatives. At Cuyamaca College, he has led the development of a performance-driven program centered on ambitious repertoire and long-term ensemble growth. As President and Co-Founder of San Diego Winds, he has built a platform for extended artistic projects, collaborations, and new work within the wind ensemble medium. Across these contexts, his work reflects a consistent focus on creating the conditions for meaningful musical experiences—connecting artists, students, and audiences through repertoire of depth, scale, and human significance.
Biography
James Sepulvado is a conductor, artistic director, and professor whose work centers on the long-term creation of ensembles and institutions capable of sustaining ambitious repertoire and meaningful musical experiences. His career reflects a unified artistic vision in which conducting functions not only as podium leadership, but as a broader form of artistic, educational, and civic responsibility.
He serves as Associate Professor of Music and Chair of the Performing Arts Department at Cuyamaca College, where he conducts the Wind Ensemble and Concert Band and has led the rebuilding of the program into a performance-driven collegiate environment. Under his leadership, the ensembles have engaged deeply with large-scale works of the wind repertoire, emphasizing music of depth, structural integrity, and expressive seriousness. His work in higher education is shaped by a commitment to long-term ensemble development, institutional stability, and professional artistic standards.
Sepulvado is President and Co-Founder of San Diego Winds, an organization centered on a professional wind ensemble that has become a platform for extended repertoire projects, composer-centered initiatives, and sustained artistic collaboration. The organization reflects his belief that great music requires time, trust, and institutional structures that support artistic risk and long-form creative work.
In addition to his work with wind ensembles, Sepulvado has played a key role in presenting professional chamber music through the ECHO Chamber Music Series at Cuyamaca College. He is also Founder and Director of the San Diego Summer Music Institute (SDSMI), one of the largest summer music programs in the country, and Founder of the SDSMI Conducting Symposium. From 2019–2024, he also directed RAMP (Ryan Anthony Music Project), a professional learning initiative for music educators that included conductors symposia featuring internationally recognized artists and professional ensembles.
A formative influence on Sepulvado’s artistic philosophy was his close relationship with composer David Maslanka, whose work and ethical seriousness deeply shaped his approach to large-scale form, expressive intensity, and repertoire selection. He is the author of The Joy of Listening to Music (Great River Learning, 2020) and is an active guest conductor, clinician, and adjudicator. His work has been recognized with honors including the Yamaha “40 Under 40” Award and a quarter-finalist placement in the Warsaw International Wind Band Conducting Competition.