Vanderbilt Chorale, European Recording Orchestra, Robin Fountain, Tucker Biddlecombe
Biography Vanderbilt Chorale, European Recording Orchestra, Robin Fountain, Tucker Biddlecombe
Michael Kurek
American composer Michael Kurek’s music is receiving increasing acclaim for its lush, neo-traditional, melodic, and narrative style, reminiscent of the early 20th century symphonists. It has garnered performances by numerous symphony orchestras and chamber groups throughout the United States and in 15 countries on five continents, in addition to online streams in over 100 countries on six continents. His works have been heard nationwide on NPR and other countries’ national radio broadcasts, and have also been profiled in national print media and music journals.
Kurek has received several important awards for his music, including the prestigious Academy Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (the Academy’s top lifetime achievement award, now called the Arts and Letters Award), the Academy’s Charles Ives Award and national awards or fellowships from the League of American Orchestras, BMI, NEA, Meet the Composer, MTNA, the Tanglewood Music Center, and others.
His 2017 album, THE SEA KNOWS, debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Traditional Classical Music chart, and he has served on the Classical Nominations Committee for the GRAMMY Awards. In 2022, The Tennessee State Legislature and Governor named Kurek “Composer Laureate of the State of Tennessee.” He has been a popular guest composer at universities and an adjudicator of the national composition contests of ASCAP and others. His teachers included the German composer Hans Werner Henze, French composer Eugene Kurtz, and Pulitzer-prize winning American composers William Bolcom and Leslie Bassett. His book on spirituality in music, The Sound of Beauty, was released by Ignatius Press to strong reviews in September 2019. He holds a doctorate in music composition from the University of Michigan and is a Professor Emeritus of Composition at Vanderbilt University, where he chaired the department of composition for 14 years. The Panhellenic Council of the university presented him with the “Best Music Educator at Vanderbilt” award.
Tucker Biddlecombe
(Ph.D.) is Director of Choral Activities at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music. There he conducts the Vanderbilt Chorale, and Symphonic Choir, and teaches courses in Choral Conducting and Music Education. He also serves as Director of the Nashville Symphony Chorus, the offcial vocal arm of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Biddlecombe is a veteran teacher and a passionate advocate for music education. Ensembles under his direction have performed to acclaim at state and division conventions of ACDA, and he is active as a guest conductor. A native of Buffalo New York, Biddlecombe is a graduate of SUNY Pots dam and Florida State University, where he completed doctoral studies in choral conducting and music education with André Thomas. He resides in Nashville, TN with his wife Mary Biddlecombe, Artistic Director of the Blair Children’s Chorus.
Robin Fountain
is Professor of Conducting at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music. He is also in demand as a guest conductor, with recent engagements including concerts with the Singapore Symphony, the Louisiana Philharmonic, and Traverse City Symphony.
Two tours of China, recordings, performances of important but rarely heard works (for example Benstein’s Mass), and the commissioning of new music (for example Tracy Silverman’s Love Song to the Sun) have distinguished his leadership of the orchestra program at the Blair School of Music. He has won both the university-wide Madison Sarratt Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching and the Blair School of Music’s Faculty Excellence Award.
Fountain recently stepped down as Music Director of Southwest Michigan Symphony. Over 14 seasons, he had led a transformation of the orchestra’s performance level, repertoire, and scope, with the ensemble now boasting a summer series (the Water’s Edge), a choral partnership (the SMSO Symphony Chorus), and a teaching program for underserved youngsters (Music Makers).
Educated at Oxford University, The Royal College of Music in London (where he studied with Norman Del Mar and Christopher Adey), and at Carnegie Mellon University, Fountain was an Aspen Conducting Fellow in 1984. In 2012 he was privileged to have the opportunity to train with members of the famed Berlin Philharmonic at The Conductors Lab in Aix-en-Provence.
