FEMEA is thrilled to introduce the conductors of elementary ensembles at the
2025 FMEA Professional Development Conference & All-State Concerts
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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 the 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
Evan Billings, Orff Ensemble
Evan Billings has been teaching K- 5 General Music since 2007. He holds a Bachelors of Music Education from The University of Kansas and a Masters of Education in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He has completed all three levels of training in both Orff-Schulwerk (UNLV) and Kodály (WSU). Evan is a past-president of Nevada's Desert-Valley Chapter of the American Orff-Schulwerk Association. He has served as chair of the Clark County School District Orff Festival and his groups represented CCSD as featured performers at the 2015 American Orff-Schulwerk Association National Professional Development Conference in San Diego, CA. His students have performed in events across the valley including with the Las Vegas Philharmonic at The Smith Center and Barry Manilow.
Jennifer Prestridge, Orff Ensemble
Jennifer K. Prestridge has taught music to Kindergarten through 5th grade students in Las Vegas, Nevada for the past 28 years and is currently the Music Specialist at Gilbert Academy of Creative Arts. Gilbert’s performing ensembles were featured performers at the AOSA National Conference in 2019. Jennifer is a certified Orff Schulwerk Teacher-Educator in movement and recorder and teaches at several Orff courses across the country. She regularly presents sessions on arts integration, music and movement at conferences and workshops at local and national levels.
