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615-343-3167
1185 Blair
Mary Biddlecombe serves as director of the Blair Academy and as artistic director of the Vanderbilt Youth Choirs, overseeing the program’s six choirs encompassing students in grades 1-12. She also conducts the University Singers and teaches courses in music education and choral literature at Vanderbilt as part of the Blair-to-Peabody teacher education program. Before joining the faculty at the Blair School of Music, Biddlecombe spent 10 years as a public-school choral director in New York, Georgia and Florida, encompassing every grade level.
Biddlecombe is a specialist in children’s voices, particularly middle school and secondary choral settings. She is in demand as an adjudicator and clinician presenting numerous interest sessions for music educators. She has conducted all-state choruses for Alabama, Florida, and Georgia as well as regional honor choirs in ten states. In 2022 she served as co-conductor of the UCTB Honor Choir for the Southern Region American Choral Directors Association Conference as well as the Children’s Choir Clinician for the Montreat Music & Worship Conference. In 2024, Biddlecombe will conduct the Children’s Honor Choir for the Southwest Region ACDA Conference as well as all-state choirs in California, Florida, Kentucky, New Jersey and North Carolina.
Choirs under her direction have performed for conventions of the American Choral Directors Association and have toured nationally and internationally. In 2024, VYC students will perform at the ACDA Children and Community Youth conference and will tour to Italy to perform the music of Elaine Hagenberg with the composer. Vanderbilt Youth Choirs also frequently collaborate with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra with recent projects including two Mahler symphonies, John Adams’ On the Transmigration of Souls, Britten’s War Requiem, and Orff’s Carmina Burana in Prague, CZ with the Nashville Symphony Chorus.
Biddlecombe is a native of Syracuse, N.Y. and holds a master of music in Choral Conducting from Florida State University, and a bachelor of music education from the Crane School Music at SUNY Potsdam. She makes her home in Nashville with her husband, Tucker Biddlecombe, director of choral activities at Vanderbilt.