Mary Biddlecombe is a nationally renowned specialist in choral music for developing voices, specializing in contextual music literacy, symphonic repertoire, and pedagogy through creative collaboration.

A member of the faculty at Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music since 2012, she serves as artistic director of the Vanderbilt Youth Choirs program and teaches collegiate classes in choral studies and music education. Vanderbilt Youth Choirs tour annually and frequently collaborate with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. Performance highlights have included Britten’s War Requiem, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Adams’ On the Transmigration of Souls, Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, and Bernstein’s Symphony No. 3, “Kaddish”. Internationally, the VYC has presented concerts in Budapest, Costa Rica, Ireland, Italy, and Prague. She also serves as director of the Blair Academy, a comprehensive precollegiate music program serving approximately 800 families in the Nashville community.

Mrs. Biddlecombe maintains a busy schedule of conducting honor choirs throughout the country. Her unique approach invigorates students and enlightens choral directors on creative rehearsal techniques. The past several years have yielded state wide conducting engagements in Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, New York, North Carolina, New Jersey, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia. Regional credits include engagements with the Southwest and Southern Regions of the American Choral Directors Association. She also mentors collegiate students studying choral music education through their participation as teaching assistants in the eight graded ensembles of the Vanderbilt Youth Choirs program. In addition, Mary is co-founder of the Vanderbilt Choral Scholars, a bi-annual cohort of collegiate students who travel to the United Kingdom engaging with cathedral youth choirs and boychoirs in Leeds and Liverpool.

Biddlecombe holds the MM in Choral Conducting from The Florida State University and a BME from the Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam. She enjoys singing professionally with Vocal Arts Nashville, and with the all-volunteer Nashville Symphony Chorus under the direction of her husband, Tucker Biddlecombe, director of choral studies at Vanderbilt.

Matthew Greer was appointed Artistic Director of Quintessence in 2009. He also serves as Director of Music and Worship Arts at St. John’s United Methodist Church, where he oversees a comprehensive music program. In recent years, he has served on the choral faculty of the University of New Mexico, and as a guest conductor for the New Mexico Philharmonic. In 2012, he was among the recipients of Creative Albuquerque’s Bravos! Awards, honoring artistic innovation, entrepreneurship, and community impact. His teachers have included Alice Parker, Jane Marshall, and Ann Howard Jones. A native of Kansas City, he has degrees in music education and theology from Trinity University and Boston University.