2026 Reynolds Conducting Institute Fellow

Meet Ewerton dos Santos Siqueira Silva

Ewerton Silva is a Brazilian wind band conductor. He started as a French horn player and gradually moved into conducting, initially as an instructor before leading an educational music program at a public school on the rural outskirts of his city, with little band tradition and limited resources. That program resulted in five National Band Championships and six consecutive São Paulo State Championships. What remains with him is not the trophies, but the students who still return to that school to join the band, two years after he left. He holds a Bachelor's in Music Education from Universidade Metropolitana de Santos (2024) and is completing conducting studies at Conservatório de Tatuí, receiving the Outstanding Student Award in 2024 and 2025. Conducting symposia at UW-Milwaukee and Chicago clarified what he had read about but not fully understood: the American band tradition's dedication to the living composer and its impact on the art form. That experience solidified his path. He plans to begin his Master of Music in Wind Band Conducting at Ball State University in August 2026. Reynolds dedicated his career to demonstrating that the wind band is on equal footing with other serious art forms, through dialogue with composers from Copland to Ligeti to Corigliano. That conviction guides him here. He applies as a learner, bringing a Brazilian musician's rhythmic sensibility, an open approach to phrasing, and the experience of building something from nothing.