InConcert - January 2020

NATHAN ASPINALL
Assistant Conductor
Nathan Aspinall
begins his role as
Assistant Conductor
of the Nashville Symphony with the 2019/20
season. Previously, he was Assistant Conductor
of Jacksonville Symphony. On a tour of South
Florida with pianist Bezhod Abduraimov, he
led performances of Shostakovich’s Symphony
No. 5 and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3.
Kevin Wilt of the Palm Beach Daily News said
of the performance, “In recent years the Kravis
Center has heard performances by the Chicago
Symphony, the Royal Philharmonic, The Philadelphia
Orchestra and more. This one was just as polished
as any of those.”
During the 2018/19 season, Aspinall led
Jacksonville Symphony in two masterworks
subscription programs and a tour with organist
Cameron Carpenter. He was selected as one of
two conducting fellows at the Tanglewood Music
CONDUCTORS
Festival during the summer of 2019.
Formerly, Aspinall held the position of Young
Conductor with the Queensland Symphony
Orchestra in Australia, where he assisted Chief
Conductor Johannes Fritzsch and visiting guest
conductors, and where he conducted concerts
for the orchestra’s education series. He studied
French horn and conducting at the University of
Queensland and upon graduation was awarded
the Hugh Brandon Prize. In 2012, he attended
the Aspen Music Festival, where he was awarded
the Robert J. Harth Conducting Prize.
Aspinall has guest-conducted several symphony
orchestras, as well as the Queensland Conservatorium
Chamber Orchestra. Festival appearances and
masterclasses have included the Cabrillo Festival
of Contemporary Music, Oregon Bach Festival
and the Tanglewood Music Center Conducting
Seminar. He studied Orchestral Conducting at
New England Conservatory in Boston.
Now entering his
fourth season as
director of the Nashville
Symphony Chorus,
Dr. Tucker Biddlecombe has raised the bar of
excellence for Nashville’s premier choral ensemble
through intense musical preparation, diverse
programming and community building. Under
his direction, the Chorus has expanded to 170
members and recently toured Prague, Czech
Republic, performing Orff’s Carmina Burana. He
also serves as Associate Professor and Director
of Choral Studies at Vanderbilt University’s Blair
School of Music, where he directs the Vanderbilt
Chorale and Symphonic Choir and teaches courses
in choral conducting and music education.
Biddlecombe’s work with the Nashville
Symphony has included chorus preparation for
the world-premiere recording of John Harbison’s
Requiem (Naxos) and concert performances of
choral orchestral masterworks by Stravinsky, Ravel,
Haydn, Verdi, Handel and Mahler. He conducts
the orchestra and chorus in performance during
the annual Voices of Spring concert. In 2018
the Vanderbilt Chorale released its first solo
TUCKER BIDDLECOMBE
Chorus Director
album, Music in the Listening Place (Navona),
with Gramophone UK noting that the Chorale
“launch into each track with the earnest passion
that only university music students can innocently
and genuinely provide.” Biddlecombe made his
Carnegie Hall debut in 2019 conducting Morten
Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna.
A passionate advocate of music education and
a veteran teacher, Biddlecombe is active in school
music programs, working with teachers as a side-by
side coach with Metro Nashville Public Schools. In
2019 he completed a residency with the Central
Conservatory in Beijing, China, where he was
honored to work with student and professional
choral educators. He is in demand as a conductor
and clinician, having served as a clinician to choirs
in 25 states.
A native of Buffalo, New York, Biddlecombe is
a graduate of SUNY Potsdam and Florida State
University, where he completed doctoral studies
in choral conducting and music education with
André Thomas. He resides in Nashville with his
wife Mary Biddlecombe, Artistic Director of the
Blair Children’s Chorus.
INCONCERT
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