Orchestras

Bethaney Cross has been the Director of Orchestras at Mountain View High School since 2023 and had previously been the Assistant Orchestra Director from 2019 – 2023. Her education includes a Master of Music degree in Music Teaching and Learning from Arizona State University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Viola Performance from Northern Arizona University. Mrs. Cross also conducts the Phoenix Youth Symphony Orchestras, String Orchestra Ensemble. She has guest conducted the Northeast and Northwest regional orchestra, the MPS Junior High Orchestra Festival, Gilbert District Honor Orchestra, and the Greater Phoenix Union Honor Orchestra. Under her direction, the Mountain View Orchestra program has received Superior with Distinction ratings at Fall, Area, and State Concert festivals. In addition, the program has received the William E. Richardson program of Distinction Award for the 2023-2024 School year. Recently, her Symphony Strings performed at the Arizona Music Educators Association conference through the Arizona Band and Orchestra Directors Association as an honors performance. As a music educator, Mrs. Cross strives to develop a collaborative learning environment amongst her ensembles and build a community of friendship while learning how to deliver a polished performance.

Mrs. Cross is a native of Arizona and currently resides in Mesa with her husband and four children. When she isn’t teaching, you will find her and her family out camping and hiking.

Multidimensional conductor Julie Desbordes leads ensembles in the Americas, Asia, and her native France. Pre-COVID guest conducting appearances included performances with orchestras in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Venezuela and Cuba. Since the onset of the pandemic, she has taught orchestral musicians, music educators, and young conductors online and now also in-person, developing innovations that bring meaning and impact to music making and community building.

Ms. Desbordes made her conducting debut at age 17 and is currently Music Director of the Philharmonia Orchestra at Arizona State University, where she also teaches conducting. Previously based in New York and Baltimore, she led two groundbreaking, inclusive orchestras in New York City: the Queer Urban Orchestra and the Turtle Bay Youth Orchestra.

Also a leader in the El Sistema movement, she was a featured cast member in the documentary film, Crescendo! The Power of Music, directed by Jamie Bernstein, and is a frequent guest conductor and teaching artist at El Sistema programs internationally, as well as being a teaching artist mentor for Carnegie Hall’s Music Educators Workshops since 2019.

As a conductor and an educator, Ms. Desbordes passionately develops new audiences for concert music as she leads diversity and inclusion efforts. In Arizona, her Philharmonia Orchestra collaborates with dancers, incorporates video content into concerts, presents music by underrepresented composers, and consistently delivers performances that excite seasoned and new audiences alike.

Ms. Desbordes holds Master and Bachelor degrees in conducting and trumpet performance from conservatoires in France and Canada. She will soon complete her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in orchestral conducting at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. Her conducting mentors have included Raffi Armenian, Gustav Meier and Marin Alsop.