A Night at the Movies!
Pops Series #1: St. Bonaventure University
Saturday, October 3rd, 2026
A Night at the Movies!
Aidan Carney, conductor
Miguel Guillén-Merino, assistant conductor
Michael Lawrence Smith, assistant conductor
Program:
The Star Wars Epic
John Williams, arr. Robert W. Smith
I. Main Theme
II. Princess Leia’s Theme
III. Imperial March & Forest Battle
Music from La La Land
Justin Hurwitz, arr. Robert Longfield
Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana
Pietro Mascagni
Adagio from Spartacus & Phrygia
Aram Khachaturian
How to Train Your Dragon
John Powell, arr. Sean O’Laughlin
Intermission
Lord of the Rings
Johan de Meij
I. Gandalf
An American in Paris
George Gershwin
About the Conductors:
American-born violinist Michael Lawrence Smith is a rising classical musician hailed in The Oberlin Review as playing with, “overwhelming grace and control.” He served as concertmaster of the New York String Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and was an inaugural member of the NextGen Symphony at the Tianjin Juilliard Orchestral Symposium. Professionally, he is a member of the Boulder Bach Festival’s Compass Resonance Ensemble and previously held the Associate Concertmaster position at the Longmont Symphony Orchestra. He was awarded 1st Prize at the 2025 New Albany Symphony Concerto Competition Senior Division. Festival appearances include the Music Academy of the West, Aspen Music Festival Fellowship Program, Harpa International Music Academy, Meadowmount School of Music, Zephyr Music Festival, Rocky Ridge Music Center Programs, and Vilacello String and Piano Festival the latter of which he served as teaching fellow. He is currently pursuing his undergraduate degree at Oberlin College and Conservatory under Sigurbjörn Bernharðsson.
An emerging conductor and violinist from Guanajuato, Mexico, Miguel Guillén-Merino recently completed a Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance at the University of North Texas College of Music, where he studied with Russian violinist and pedagogue Julia Bushkova. Deeply passionate about music, he has pursued both performance and conducting as central aspects of his artistic development.
During his time at UNT, Miguel was a member of the Kintsugi Quartet, recipients of the Undergraduate String Quartet Scholarship. With the ensemble, he performed extensively across the North Texas area and received masterclasses from distinguished musicians including Simón Gollo, Horacio Contreras, Chloé Kiffer, Susan Dubois, Paul Huang, the Miró Quartet, the Merz Trio, and Philip Setzer of the Emerson String Quartet.
Miguel further developed his conducting at the Conducting Institute in Fort Worth under Miguel Harth-Bedoya and Andrew J. Kim, where he also served as a teaching assistant for the Summer 2025 session. In Fall 2026, he will begin his Master of Music in Orchestral Conducting at the Ithaca College School of Music, Theater and Dance where he will serve as a graduate assistant under the guidance of Maestro Ho-Yin Kwok and he will serve as assistant conductor of the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra under Maestro Guillaume Pirard.
In addition to his work as a conductor, Miguel is an active violin instructor who works with students of all levels, fostering both technical growth and a lasting appreciation for music.
