About the Mansfield Philharmonic
The Mansfield Philharmonic is an all-volunteer full orchestra consisting of high school and college students, teachers, active musicians, business professionals, and more! MansPhil welcomes string, woodwind, and brass musicians and collaborates with local guest artists.
The Orchestra
Mission Statement
The Mansfield Philharmonic was founded on the principles of providing accessible and quality musical engagement for all ages whilst promoting the cultural arts through communal outreach and education.
Our History
Originally founded as the Next Gen Chamber Players by three college friends and fellow musicians in May 2017, the Mansfield Philharmonic serves as the first performing orchestra in the city of Mansfield. Upon learning about the strings program in the Mansfield Independent School District starting later that fall, the founders decided the new orchestra students would greatly benefit from having a performing ensemble in their neighborhood! The first (of many) hurdles was to first find adequate rehearsal facilities and concert venue.
After reaching out to several organizations within the city, MansPhil had a breakthrough when the gracious members of First United Methodist Church in Mansfield offered their facilities for rehearsals and concerts. In addition, board members of the Mansfield Commission for the Arts offered their full support and invited the Mansfield Philharmonic to headline at the historic Farr Best Theater for the first concert event in June 2017! These incredible partnerships helped MansPhil officially become a part of the Mansfield community and begin our mission to educate and engage.
The 2017-2018 inaugural season was received with tremendous support by the Mansfield community. Our first performance held at First Methodist Mansfield included a collaboration with the Mansfield Commission of the Arts and string educators from Mansfield ISD. In addition, we premiered several works with then-resident composer Kevin Day, whom often guest conducted. Later in the season, members of the ensemble toured the Mansfield ISD intermediate schools and performed for the beginner string students in a mission to build relationships with the young musicians. The season concluded with the electric performance of Gershwin's “Rhapsody in Blue” with special guest Dr. Eldred Marshall soloing on piano. Dr. Marshall would further lend his musical talents by taking over conducting responsibilities with the newly named Mansfield Philharmonic beginning in the 2018-2019 season!
Founder & Concertmaster
Thao Pham
Thao Pham is a violinist/violist with 18 years of musical experience. While obtaining her culinary arts degree at Tarrant County College, she joined the TCC Southeast Orchestra. This led to her involvement in several more ensembles: Northeast Orchestra, Texas Chamber Music Project, and Keene Camerata.
Thao enjoys participating in community theaters during the summer to play in the pit orchestra for their musical productions. Musical theaters that she has played with include Love Your City Theater, Mainstage Classic Theatre, Music Ministry Conservatory, Uptown Theater, Plaza Theatre Company, and the Granbury Theater Company. In addition to performing in various summer musicals, Thao has performed as a featured soloist in numerous concerts and teaches privately for piano and strings. She also teaches masterclasses for orchestra students in the Mansfield School District. Thao maintains a full studio of private students year-round that play violin, viola, cello, and piano. In 2022, Thao helped start the Mansfield Summer Strings where she currently teaches first violin sectionals and is the presiding chamber coach. She won the Arlington Arts League scholarship twice with performances on both violin and viola in 2016 and 2017. When she is not teaching or performing, Thao gigs around the metroplex as a wedding/event violinist.
Thao previously studied with violinists Tzu-Ying Chan, Ivo Ivanov (Fort Worth Symphony), and Emmanuelle Boisvert (Dallas Symphony). She obtained a full scholarship to continue her education in music at Southern Methodist University and received her Bachelor of Arts in Music. During her time there, she studied violin with internationally-acclaimed violinist Chad Hoopes and viola with the co-founder and violist of the Escher String Quartet, Pierre Lapointe. Conductors who she has played under during her undergraduate studies include Paul Phillips, Michelle Merrill, David Fulmer, Andrew Grams, and Richard Kaufman. She also received coachings and masterclasses with the Viano String Quartet, and the Marmen String Quartet, Emanuel Borok, Alexander Sitkovetsky, Andres Diaz, Misha Galaganov, and Barbara Sudweeks.
Distinguished orchestras that Thao has played with include Shreveport Symphony, Fort Smith Symphony, Texarkana Symphony, Mansfield Philharmonic, Mesquite Symphony, Rockwall Philharmonic, Vienna Light Orchestra, and Millennial Choirs and Orchestra. She has also collaborated with the Dallas String Quartet, Dallas Asian Strings, Nashville pianist Jason Coleman, Music City Hit-Makers, and the Illharmonic Orchestra.
Thao served as the president of the board of the Mansfield Philharmonic for 6 years. Currently, she is the principal violist of the Mesquite Symphony Orchestra, viola section player in the Texarkana Symphony, and in May 2017 Thao was a founding member of the Mansfield Philharmonic where she currently serves as the concertmaster and marketing director.
Thao enjoys participating in community theaters during the summer to play in the pit orchestra for their musical productions. Musical theaters that she has played with include Love Your City Theater, Mainstage Classic Theatre, Music Ministry Conservatory, Uptown Theater, Plaza Theatre Company, and the Granbury Theater Company. In addition to performing in various summer musicals, Thao has performed as a featured soloist in numerous concerts and teaches privately for piano and strings. She also teaches masterclasses for orchestra students in the Mansfield School District. Thao maintains a full studio of private students year-round that play violin, viola, cello, and piano. In 2022, Thao helped start the Mansfield Summer Strings where she currently teaches first violin sectionals and is the presiding chamber coach. She won the Arlington Arts League scholarship twice with performances on both violin and viola in 2016 and 2017. When she is not teaching or performing, Thao gigs around the metroplex as a wedding/event violinist.
Thao previously studied with violinists Tzu-Ying Chan, Ivo Ivanov (Fort Worth Symphony), and Emmanuelle Boisvert (Dallas Symphony). She obtained a full scholarship to continue her education in music at Southern Methodist University and received her Bachelor of Arts in Music. During her time there, she studied violin with internationally-acclaimed violinist Chad Hoopes and viola with the co-founder and violist of the Escher String Quartet, Pierre Lapointe. Conductors who she has played under during her undergraduate studies include Paul Phillips, Michelle Merrill, David Fulmer, Andrew Grams, and Richard Kaufman. She also received coachings and masterclasses with the Viano String Quartet, and the Marmen String Quartet, Emanuel Borok, Alexander Sitkovetsky, Andres Diaz, Misha Galaganov, and Barbara Sudweeks.
Distinguished orchestras that Thao has played with include Shreveport Symphony, Fort Smith Symphony, Texarkana Symphony, Mansfield Philharmonic, Mesquite Symphony, Rockwall Philharmonic, Vienna Light Orchestra, and Millennial Choirs and Orchestra. She has also collaborated with the Dallas String Quartet, Dallas Asian Strings, Nashville pianist Jason Coleman, Music City Hit-Makers, and the Illharmonic Orchestra.
Thao served as the president of the board of the Mansfield Philharmonic for 6 years. Currently, she is the principal violist of the Mesquite Symphony Orchestra, viola section player in the Texarkana Symphony, and in May 2017 Thao was a founding member of the Mansfield Philharmonic where she currently serves as the concertmaster and marketing director.
Artistic Director & Conductor
Eldred Marshall
The Press Enterprise (Riverside, CA) hailed his “dazzling technique” and his “clean, tidy approach.” Music critic Laurence Vittes described him as an “illumination in music,” and said of his all-Beethoven recital: “Marshall presented a recital so full of musical thrills and beauties, and so in identification with the composer’s own persona, that, for a few hours, it was as if he were communing across the centuries to conjure up a rare and magical musical spectrum.” The Telegraf Online Constanta (Romania) reported that Marshall “captivated the audience” in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20, which he conducted from the piano.
Eldred Marshall began studying the piano at age six and played in public by age seven. His prodigious and inquisitive mind allowed him to master large swaths of the piano repertoire quickly as well as consistently win top prizes at the competitions he entered as a child. By 16, he debuted with orchestra, playing Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto with the Victor Valley Symphony Orchestra. Before entering into Yale University, where he graduated with honors with a B.A. in Political Science, he had already performed all over the United States.
The critically-acclaimed pianist has performed internationally: Spain, Italy, the Republic of San Marino, Belgium, Germany, Romania, Bulgaria, the Ukraine and the People’s Republic of China. He has performed the entire cycle of 32 Beethoven Piano Sonatas in public, from memory, as a concentrated series, twice: once in Portland in 2007 and in San Francisco in 2008. He followed that project with a full West Coast (US) tour of Bach’s Goldberg Variations in 2008 and 2009. In 2016-2017, Marshall toured the US and made his Chinese debut with the Goldberg Variations. In 2018, repeated the tour, of both the US S and China, with Bach’s complete Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 – performed from memory. Upcoming recitals include debut appearances in Canada, Mexico, and Costa Rica. To celebrate Beethoven’s 250th Birthday in 2020, he will perform the cycle of 5 Beethoven piano concertos, the Choral Fantasy, and the cycle of 32 Beethoven Piano Sonatas. Conductors with whom he has collaborated include K. C. Manji, Carlo Ponti, Beau Benson, Greg Grabowski, Kevin Torrefiel, Felix Torres, Michelle Merrill, Jonathan Moore, Jessica Morel and Daniel Wiley.
As an orchestral conductor, Marshall has led several international ensembles: The Ukrainian State Academic Orchestra (Kiev, Ukraine), the Kharkov Youth Symphony (Kharkov, Ukraine), the Pleven Philharmonic Orchestra (Pleven, Bulgaria), the Vidin Philharmonic Orchestra (Vidin, Bulgaria), the Filharmonica Oltenia di Craiova (Craiova, Romania), and the Constanta “Black Sea” Philharmonic Orchestra (Constanta, Romania). In the United States, he has worked as the conductor for the Riverside (CA) Opera Institute’s Children’s Opera Division, and has served as assistant conductor of the Meadows Symphony Orchestra at Southern Methodist University (SMU) and the Opera dell’arte Ensemble (NYC). He has collaborated with the University of North Texas (UNT) Symphony Orchestra. Currently, he is the Artistic Director/Conductor of the Mansfield Philharmonic, in Mansfield, TX.
In addition to his activities as a concert pianist and orchestra conductor, Marshall is the Artist-in-Residence and Associate Director of Music at First United Methodist Church in Garland, TX, where he is the founder and curator of the West Avenue B Community Concert Series. Further, Marshall is the Music Director/Conductor of the Music Ministry Conservatory Choir.
Marshall earned his Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance degree from UNT in 2018. Additionally, he earned three Master of Music degrees from SMU: piano (2011), organ (2012) and orchestral conducting (2013). Institutions at which he has taught include UNT, SMU, and North Texas Central College. His doctoral dissertation topic was on the art of conducting piano concerti from the piano – performance practice, discipline, and whether or not it is “real conducting.”
Eldred Marshall began studying the piano at age six and played in public by age seven. His prodigious and inquisitive mind allowed him to master large swaths of the piano repertoire quickly as well as consistently win top prizes at the competitions he entered as a child. By 16, he debuted with orchestra, playing Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto with the Victor Valley Symphony Orchestra. Before entering into Yale University, where he graduated with honors with a B.A. in Political Science, he had already performed all over the United States.
The critically-acclaimed pianist has performed internationally: Spain, Italy, the Republic of San Marino, Belgium, Germany, Romania, Bulgaria, the Ukraine and the People’s Republic of China. He has performed the entire cycle of 32 Beethoven Piano Sonatas in public, from memory, as a concentrated series, twice: once in Portland in 2007 and in San Francisco in 2008. He followed that project with a full West Coast (US) tour of Bach’s Goldberg Variations in 2008 and 2009. In 2016-2017, Marshall toured the US and made his Chinese debut with the Goldberg Variations. In 2018, repeated the tour, of both the US S and China, with Bach’s complete Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 – performed from memory. Upcoming recitals include debut appearances in Canada, Mexico, and Costa Rica. To celebrate Beethoven’s 250th Birthday in 2020, he will perform the cycle of 5 Beethoven piano concertos, the Choral Fantasy, and the cycle of 32 Beethoven Piano Sonatas. Conductors with whom he has collaborated include K. C. Manji, Carlo Ponti, Beau Benson, Greg Grabowski, Kevin Torrefiel, Felix Torres, Michelle Merrill, Jonathan Moore, Jessica Morel and Daniel Wiley.
As an orchestral conductor, Marshall has led several international ensembles: The Ukrainian State Academic Orchestra (Kiev, Ukraine), the Kharkov Youth Symphony (Kharkov, Ukraine), the Pleven Philharmonic Orchestra (Pleven, Bulgaria), the Vidin Philharmonic Orchestra (Vidin, Bulgaria), the Filharmonica Oltenia di Craiova (Craiova, Romania), and the Constanta “Black Sea” Philharmonic Orchestra (Constanta, Romania). In the United States, he has worked as the conductor for the Riverside (CA) Opera Institute’s Children’s Opera Division, and has served as assistant conductor of the Meadows Symphony Orchestra at Southern Methodist University (SMU) and the Opera dell’arte Ensemble (NYC). He has collaborated with the University of North Texas (UNT) Symphony Orchestra. Currently, he is the Artistic Director/Conductor of the Mansfield Philharmonic, in Mansfield, TX.
In addition to his activities as a concert pianist and orchestra conductor, Marshall is the Artist-in-Residence and Associate Director of Music at First United Methodist Church in Garland, TX, where he is the founder and curator of the West Avenue B Community Concert Series. Further, Marshall is the Music Director/Conductor of the Music Ministry Conservatory Choir.
Marshall earned his Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance degree from UNT in 2018. Additionally, he earned three Master of Music degrees from SMU: piano (2011), organ (2012) and orchestral conducting (2013). Institutions at which he has taught include UNT, SMU, and North Texas Central College. His doctoral dissertation topic was on the art of conducting piano concerti from the piano – performance practice, discipline, and whether or not it is “real conducting.”
Founder, Education Director & MPYO Conductor
Fletcher Rudd
Fletcher Rudd is a cellist, conductor, and strings teacher from Arlington, TX. He currently serves as the Education Director of the Mansfield Philharmonic and the Interim Conductor of the newly formed Mansfield Philharmonic Youth Orchestras (MPYO). Mr. Rudd previously served as a teaching artist for the B Sharp Youth Music Program in Fort Worth ISD, where he also conducted the B Sharp Youth Orchestras. His conducting experience also includes student, amateur and professional musicians such as the Mansfield Philharmonic, Texas New Music Ensemble, Mid-Cities Strings, and Mansfield Summer Strings.
Additionally, he has been invited as a guest clinician for middle and high school orchestras and has served as a judge for Texas Solo & Ensemble, pre-UIL competitions, and several other music festivals. He is an active cello and bass instructor in the Dallas–Fort Worth area, where his students have consistently placed in district and regional orchestras. In 2025, Mr. Rudd will conduct the Cedar Hill All-City Orchestra.
Mr. Rudd is completing his undergraduate studies in music education at the University of Texas at Arlington and performs with the UTA Symphony Orchestra. In 2023, the UTASO were invited to perform at the TMEA convention/clinic in San Antonio, TX. Mr. Rudd studied cello with Craig Leffer (Dallas Opera) and Laura Ospina (Las Colinas Symphony). He has also studied conducting at workshops directed by Dr. Clifton Evans at UT Arlington and Miguel Harth-Bedoya at The Conducting Institute. In 2024, Mr. Rudd was selected as a conducting fellow at the Texas New Music Festival in Houston, TX. His conducting mentors include Dr. Clifton Evans (OKC University), Miguel Harth-Bedoya (Rice University), Dr. Eldred Marshall (Mansfield Philharmonic), Dr. Michelle Perrin Blair (New Texas Symphony Orchestra), Felipe Tristan (Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra), Dr. Jeffrey Grogan (Baylor University), and Dr. Michael Alexander (Baylor University).
In 2017, Mr. Rudd co-founded the Mansfield Philharmonic (formerly the Next Gen Chamber Players) and served as its first Artistic Director and Conductor. The orchestra was featured in D Magazine in 2023 as "The Best Suburban Orchestra." In 2022, he was a founding teacher of the Mansfield Summer Strings Camp, where he currently conducts the Symphony Orchestra, co-teaches the Chamber Orchestra, and serves as Faculty Supervisor. In 2025, Mr. Rudd co-founded the Mansfield Philharmonic Youth Orchestras. An advocate for new music, he has long collaborated with modern composers and conducted the works of Kevin Day, Quinn Mason, Siobhan Cassidy Robinson, Armond Vance, David Lovrien, Justin Talamantez, and the late Ric Flauding. Mr. Rudd is an active member of the Texas Music Educators Association and the Texas Orchestra Directors Association.
Additionally, he has been invited as a guest clinician for middle and high school orchestras and has served as a judge for Texas Solo & Ensemble, pre-UIL competitions, and several other music festivals. He is an active cello and bass instructor in the Dallas–Fort Worth area, where his students have consistently placed in district and regional orchestras. In 2025, Mr. Rudd will conduct the Cedar Hill All-City Orchestra.
Mr. Rudd is completing his undergraduate studies in music education at the University of Texas at Arlington and performs with the UTA Symphony Orchestra. In 2023, the UTASO were invited to perform at the TMEA convention/clinic in San Antonio, TX. Mr. Rudd studied cello with Craig Leffer (Dallas Opera) and Laura Ospina (Las Colinas Symphony). He has also studied conducting at workshops directed by Dr. Clifton Evans at UT Arlington and Miguel Harth-Bedoya at The Conducting Institute. In 2024, Mr. Rudd was selected as a conducting fellow at the Texas New Music Festival in Houston, TX. His conducting mentors include Dr. Clifton Evans (OKC University), Miguel Harth-Bedoya (Rice University), Dr. Eldred Marshall (Mansfield Philharmonic), Dr. Michelle Perrin Blair (New Texas Symphony Orchestra), Felipe Tristan (Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra), Dr. Jeffrey Grogan (Baylor University), and Dr. Michael Alexander (Baylor University).
In 2017, Mr. Rudd co-founded the Mansfield Philharmonic (formerly the Next Gen Chamber Players) and served as its first Artistic Director and Conductor. The orchestra was featured in D Magazine in 2023 as "The Best Suburban Orchestra." In 2022, he was a founding teacher of the Mansfield Summer Strings Camp, where he currently conducts the Symphony Orchestra, co-teaches the Chamber Orchestra, and serves as Faculty Supervisor. In 2025, Mr. Rudd co-founded the Mansfield Philharmonic Youth Orchestras. An advocate for new music, he has long collaborated with modern composers and conducted the works of Kevin Day, Quinn Mason, Siobhan Cassidy Robinson, Armond Vance, David Lovrien, Justin Talamantez, and the late Ric Flauding. Mr. Rudd is an active member of the Texas Music Educators Association and the Texas Orchestra Directors Association.