The 2011-12 Season marks Thomas Hinds’ 29th year on the MSO's podium as its music director and conductor. A graduate of the University of North Carolina, Maestro Hinds was a professional performing musician for ten years prior to taking up the baton. His past podiums, as both a resident and guest conductor, include the Ft. Worth Civic Orchestra, Red Mountain Chamber Orchestra, Johnson City Symphony, Gadsden Symphony, the Southern Regional Opera Company, the Birmingham Metropolitan Orchestra, and the Brisbane (Australia) Conservatory Orchestra. 

Maestro Hinds has also served as the music director for the Alabama Shakespeare Theatre's productions of Man of La Mancha, Beauty and the Beast, and, most recently, West Side Story.  In 2007, he received the Governor's Arts Award from the Alabama State Council on the Arts - the only conductor in its history to be so honored.

Maestro Hinds received his training at the Aspen Festival in Colorado, the Goldofsky Opera Institute in Massachusetts, the Pierre Monteux Domain School in Maine, the Munchen Philharmoniker Dirigierkurs in Munich, West Germany, and at the American Conductors’ Guild Institute.

Under Maestro Hinds’ tenure, the MSO has developed far beyond the normal expectations of a community orchestra. From the number of concerts performed to its internationally recognized fellowship program, the MSO continues to surpass its sister ensembles across the South.

Each week, Maestro Hinds interviews a variety of guests from central Alabama's music scene on the Montgomery Symphony Radio Show.  Guest artists, Orchestra members, MSO volunteers, arts patrons, and leaders in our arts community all take their turn at the microphone during the light-hearted and informal ten-minute radio program every Friday morning at 8:10. Tune into Troy State Public Radio, 89.9 FM.