Conductor, pianist, harpsichordist, composer, arranger, and theorist Samuel Hollister believes that music tells powerful stories that create and strengthen community. Since 2024, he has served as the Assistant Conductor of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and The Fred M. Saigh Youth Orchestra Music Director of the St. Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra. Hollister made his subscription classical debut with SLSO in the spring of 2026, adding to the dozens of classical, pops, film, family, education, and side-by-side performances with SLSO he conducts each season. His recent and upcoming conducting engagements include appearances with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Colorado Music Festival, Paducah Symphony Orchestra, Lansing Symphony Orchestra, and the National Youth Orchestra of the USA, where he served on the conducting staff in 2026.

Hollister is a doctoral post-resident in orchestral conducting at the Yale School of Music, having finished his residency in 2024. He served as the Music Director of the Civic Orchestra of New Haven in 2023–2024 and served on the faculty of the University of Rhode Island in 2022–2023 as the director of orchestral activities. He earned his master’s degrees in orchestral conducting and music theory pedagogy from Peabody and his bachelor’s degree in music and mathematics from Yale. His love of music communication informs his work as a lecturer, writer on music, and host of the SLSO’s weekly podcast, Noted.

Hollister is a fierce advocate of new music and has worked closely with composers including Kevin Puts, John Corigliano, and Joan Tower. Through his music director positions, he has commissioned a plethora of new works, including concertos for guitar and marimba. Hollister’s passion for new music includes unearthing long-lost masterworks of the past. In 2022, he co-founded and led the “Emilie Mayer Project” at University of Rhode Island, for which he helped create the first public domain edition of her Overture No. 3 for any orchestra to use and perform from for free. In 2018, Hollister founded Aurora Collaborative, an innovative Rhode Island non-profit community music organization blending music with art and writing. As a composer himself, he has written and arranged extensively for piano, chamber ensembles, orchestra, and choir.

A dedicated pianist, harpsichordist, vocal coach, and conductor, Hollister enjoys bringing his unique aural skills and passion for communication to the world of opera. He was named a conducting fellow and pianist at Opera Saratoga in 2022, and he worked with Peabody’s Opera Department from 2020–2022. He conducted and played piano and harpsichord at the Eastern Music Festival in 2019 and 2021, where he also read full orchestral scores at the piano for the conducting seminars, and served as conducting fellow of the Chautauqua Institute in 2024. Hollister has studied with and assisted a broad array of conductors and musicians including Leonard Slatkin, Marin Alsop, Peter Oundjian, Yo-Yo Ma, Dalia Stasevska, Larry Rachleff, and John Storgårds.

When he’s not making music, you’ll likely find Hollister playing a game of chess, cooking, or spending time with his cats Apollo and Spinnaker.