Dallas Symphony Orchestra Announces Six Musician Appointments for the 2025/26 Concert Season
DALLAS, TX (August 19, 2025) – The Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO) and Music Director Fabio Luisi (Louise W. & Edmund J. Kahn Music Directorship) are pleased to announce the appointments of six musicians to the orchestra for the 2025/26 concert season. The DSO welcomes Mark Debski as Interim Principal Oboe, Paul Hafley as Associate Principal and E-flat Clarinet (Robert E. & Ruth Glaze Chair), Samantha Bennett to the second violin section (interim), SaiSai Ding to the cello section, Christian Luevano as Associate Principal Bass and Alexander Heather to the bass section.
The DSO welcomes Mark Debski, who will serve as Interim Principal Oboe for the 2025/26 season. Debski was most recently Principal Oboe in The Florida Orchestra and the Richmond Symphony and was also a fellow at the New World Symphony. An avid orchestral musician, Debski has performed as a guest with the Boston Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, New Zealand Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra and The Cleveland Orchestra. During the summer, Debski is the second oboist at the Britt Music Festival in Jacksonville, Oregon. Debski earned an undergraduate degree from the New England Conservatory as a student of John Ferrillo and Anne Gabriele. Beyond his lifelong pursuit to make the perfect reed, Debski enjoys studying Italian, reading historical fiction and hiking.
Paul Hafley joins the DSO as Associate Principal and E-flat Clarinet after completing his service with the United States Navy Band, where he has performed since 2021. Hafley hails from San Diego, California, and studied at the University of Memphis, the New England Conservatory of Music and the University of Texas at Austin. His notable teachers include Jonathan Gunn, Michael Wayne, Yehuda Gilad, Frank Renk and Robyn Jones. Hafley held the role of Principal Clarinet with the Corinth Symphony Orchestra from 2017-2019 and has appeared as a guest with the Washington National Opera, Washington Opera Society and Sunflower Music Festival.
Samantha Bennett joins the DSO as an interim member of the second violin section. Born in Ames, Iowa, Bennett earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the New England Conservatory in Boston, where she studied with Donald Weilerstein and Malcolm Lowe. Along with her husband, DSO Principal Percussionist George Nickson, Bennett is the founder and Co-Artistic Director of ensembleNEWSRQ (enSRQ), a new music collective based in Sarasota, Florida. Bennett previously held positions with The Dallas Opera Orchestra and the Sarasota Orchestra, where she was Principal Second Violin from 2016-2022.
Recent Southern Methodist University graduate SaiSai Ding will be the newest member of the cello section this season. SaiSai, originally from Shanghai, China, began his cello studies at age six at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. After moving to the US, he studied with cellist Ko Iwasaki and Andres Diaz before attending the Curtis Institute of Music. He has participated in many competitions and received grand prizes from the Collin County Young Artists Competition, the Vernell Gregg Young Artist Competition, the Fort Worth Symphony Young Artist Competition and the Schoenfeld International Competition Best Commission Prize.
Christian Luevano joins the orchestra as Associate Principal Bass starting January 5, 2026. Luevano grew up in Denton, Texas, where he studied with Gudrun Raschen and Jeff Bradetich and spent nine seasons as a member of the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra. He is currently completing his studies at the Curtis Institute of Music, where his teachers include Hal Robinson and Edgar Meyer. Luevano has been a prizewinner and finalist in nearly every major competition for double bassists in the United States, including the Sphinx, Stulberg and Klein Competitions. In addition to his classical work, Luevano is a founding member of the Philadelphia-based folk band Trunk Show and enjoys collaborating and creating in diverse musical settings.
Alexander Heather also joins the bass section this season. Heather earned his master’s degree at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia under Hal Robinson and Edgar Meyer after completing undergraduate studies in London at the Royal College of Music and Royal Academy of Music. Heather was born in Mount Kisco, New York, and began to study the double bass at the age of nine at the Westchester Music Conservatory and later at The Juilliard School. In 2014, Heather moved with his family to the United Kingdom to attend Wells Cathedral School as a specialist musician studying under David Heyes. During his time there, he was also a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain for two years.
To learn more about the DSO’s new musicians, read a Q&A with them here. Interviews are available upon request, and photos of all six musicians can be downloaded here.
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ABOUT THE DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
The Dallas Symphony Orchestra, under the leadership of Music Director Fabio Luisi (Louise W. & Edmund J. Kahn Music Directorship), presents more than 150 orchestra concerts each year at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, one of the world’s top-rated concert halls. As the largest performing arts organization in the Southwest, the DSO is committed to inspiring the broadest possible audience with distinctive classical programs, inventive pops concerts and innovative multi-media presentations. As part of its commitment to the community, the orchestra reaches more than 200,000 adults and children annually through performances, educational programs and community engagement initiatives. The orchestra offers more than 200 chamber concerts in neighborhoods throughout Dallas each year, as well as music lessons to more than 1,500 students as part of its Young Strings and Kim Noltemy Young Musicians programs.The DSO has a tradition dating back to 1900 and is a cornerstone of the unique, 118-acre Arts District in Downtown Dallas that is home to multiple performing arts venues, museums and parks – the largest district of its kind in the nation. The DSO is supported, in part, by funds from the Office of Arts & Culture, City of Dallas. For more information, visit dallassymphony.org.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Chelsey Norris, Director of Communications
c.norris@dalsym.com | 214.871.4063