Billy Ray Hearn Chorus Director

Tucker Biddlecombe is the Billy Ray Hearn Chorus Director of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra and is entering his tenth season as director of the Nashville Symphony Chorus. In addition, Biddlecombe serves as Professor of Choral Studies at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music, where he conducts the Vanderbilt Sixteen and University Singers. 

His work with the Nashville Symphony has included chorus preparation for many of the repertoire’s most revered masterworks. This season includes preparation for Maestro Leonard Slatkin on Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and Brahms Requiem. Biddlecombe will conduct the orchestra and chorus in Handel’s Messiah, and a birthday concert of the works of Bach, including Magnificat in D. He has prepared the chorus for multiple major world-premiere recordings, including John Harbison’s Requiem, Gabriela Lena-Frank’s Conquest Requiem, and the upcoming release of Jonathan Leshnoff’s The Sacrifice of Isaac. The chorus recently recorded a live performance of Carol Barnett’s The World Beloved: A Bluegrass Mass for upcoming commercial release. 

Performance highlights at Blair have included Britten’s War Requiem, Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, and Fire in My Mouth by Julia Wolfe. He has conducted honor choruses in a dozen states, two concerts at Carnegie Hall, and in 2022 conducted the UCTB honor choir for the Southern Region of the American Choral Directors Association. International engagements have included guest conducting throughout the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, and a residency with the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. He is a graduate of SUNY Potsdam and Florida State University, where he completed studies in choral conducting and music education with Daniel Gordon and André Thomas, respectively. He resides in Nashville with his wife Mary Biddlecombe, director of the Blair Academy at Vanderbilt, and Artistic Director of Vanderbilt Youth Choirs.