Selim Giray

Dr. Selim Giray serves as Director of the Orchestra and String Instruments Departments at the main campus of the University of Mississippi and as Co-Chair of the American String Teachers Association National Orchestra Festival. Since 2023, Selim Giray has also periodically served as assistant conductor at the Memphis Symphony Orchestra and the Memphis Ballet. In February 2026 he conducted the String Orchestra of the Georgia State High School Competition, and in February 2024 Dr. Giray took the stage as conductor of the String Orchestra of the California State High School Competition. He has also been invited as conductor for the January 2028 concert of the String Honor Orchestra of the Florida State High School Competition. Between 2007 and 2015, Giray served as Concertmaster and Assistant Conductor at the Ohio Light Opera. Selim Giray is the author of two university textbooks titled Fundamentals of Instrumental and Choral Conducting (2025) and String Methods for Beginners (2020). Between 2020 and 2023, Selim Giray served as Member-at-Large Representative on the National Board of the American String Teachers Association. In the USA, Giray received violin training from Eliot Chapo, former Concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, and Fritz Gearhart, and studied conducting with Dr. William Intriligator, Music Director and Conductor of the Dubuque and Cheyenne Symphony Orchestras, and Roman Skřepek, former conductor of the Košice State Theatre Opera.