Meet The music directors

Brad Lambrecht joined the music faculty at Alexandria School District #206 in the fall of 2007. He currently serves as Director of Orchestras for the Alexandria Area High School. Mr. Lambrecht is also the founder and conductor of the Central Lakes Symphony Orchestra. Through the Central Lakes Symphony Orchestra, Mr. Lambrecht has collaborated with the Minnesota Opera, Twin Cities Ballet, Shaun Johnson Big Band Experience, and many other regionally/nationally renowned musicians. Some of these collaborative highlights are Mozart’s “Die Zauberflote,” Bizet’s “Carmen,” Copland’s “Rodeo,” Orff’s “Carmina Burana,” and Clausen’s “Memorial.” During his tenure with the CLSO, Mr. Lambrecht has also commissioned five works to be written by Midwest composers. These compositions were based on the Alexandria Lakes Area and proudly premiered there.

Prior to his appointments in Alexandria, Mr. Lambrecht was a 2005 Music Education graduate from Valley City State University in Valley City, North Dakota. While attending VCSU he was awarded winner of the North Dakota Young Artists competition two years in a row. After graduation Mr. Lambrecht became the band, choir, and strings teacher for Central Cass High School in Casselton, North Dakota.

Mr. Lambrecht has enjoyed the tutelage of notable conductors such as Dr. Mallory Thompson, Professor H. Bob Reynolds, Dr. Warren Olfert, Dr. Sigurd Johnson, and Dr. Leesa Levy. In 2012 Mr. Lambrecht was recognized as Minnesota Public Radio’s Music Teacher Feature. Mr. Lambrecht completed his Master’s Degree in Music Education specializing in Orchestral Conducting from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado under the direction of Maestro Wes Kenney. Since then Mr. Lambrecht has been a regular guest conductor for many youth honors orchestras such as the North Dakota String Honors Orchestra and twice the Minnesota Mid-Level Honors Orchestra.

Lindsay Schwartz Miiller is the orchestra teacher at Cheney Middle School in West Fargo where she has been since 2011. She is a cellist with the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra and teaches many private cello students. Ms.Schwartz has her Bachelor’s degree in Music Education from Lawrence University in Appleton, WI and her Master’s degree in Music Education from the University of Florida. She has traveled to Haiti nearly every summer since 2008 to teach music to students of all ages and is the assistant treasurer of the non-profit Blume Haiti (Building Leaders Using Music Education Haiti). Ms. Schwartz has been the Attacca Strings director since its formation in 2017. She lives in Fargo with her husband Glenn and daughter Hazel.

Brian Cole has been an orchestra teacher in the Moorhead, Minnesota public school district since 1995. Mr. Cole became the conductor with the Fargo Moorhead Area Youth Symphony in 1996. Originally from Marshall, Minnesota, Brian graduated from the University of South Dakota, received his Master’s of Music in orchestra conducting from the University of Northern Colorado and has received post-graduate credits from The Ohio State University.

During his tenure, enrollment in Moorhead's orchestra program has grown from 210 to over 800. Mr. Cole and his orchestra colleagues are strong believers in performing outreach concerts for rural schools. Since 1996, orchestras from Moorhead and the Fargo Moorhead Area Youth Symphony have performed more than 100 concerts throughout the upper Midwest for schools without orchestra programs.

The Moorhead hockey-jersey-clad orchestras have been invited to play at both state and national conventions. The Moorhead program is one of only a handful of programs in the country to have been invited to perform at both the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago and the American String Teacher's National Convention.

A frequent clinician, speaker, and all state conductor across the country, Mr. Cole has appeared at music conventions in more than 20 states. Since 2011, Cole has been on the faculty of the String Teacher Workshop held at The Ohio State University. Cole was named Minnesota's string teacher of the year in 2003 by MNSOTA and received the Heidi Castleman Award from Chamber Music America. The Moorhead String Program also is a past recipient of MNSOTA's Meritorious String Program award.

A football and track coach at his school, Cole is past chairman for ASTA's National High School Honor's Orchestra. Brian and his wife Deborah have three children and make their home in Moorhead.