Dr. Carol Nies, director of the MTSU Symphony Orchestra, also serves as director of the Rome Music Festival (Italy) and the Summer Orchestral Institute at MTSU (NSOI). She has served as a cover conductor and a conducting assistant for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the associate conductor of the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, director of the Curb Youth Symphony (Blair School of Music), director of the Nashville Youth Orchestra program (Blair School of Music), guest conductor of the Rome Festival Orchestra and guest conductor of the Rome Festival Opera (Carmen, Falstaff, La bohème, Die Zauberflöte, Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, L’elisir d’amore, Cavalleria rusticana and Il barbiere di Siviglia). She has also served as the director of the Cincinnati Contemporary Music Ensemble, the Branford College Chamber Orchestra (Yale) and Opera-To-Go (Cincinnati).            

Guest conducting engagements have included concerts with the Hradec Kralove Philharmonic (Czech Republic), the Black Sea Philharmonic (Romania), the River Cities Symphony (Ohio), Music Under Construction (Contemporary Music Series, New York City), the Tennessee Governor’s School for the Arts Orchestra and the New York All-State String Orchestra. She is also an active clinician for high school and university orchestras. Future conducting engagements include the Rome Music Festival.  

She received a DMA in Orchestral Conducting from the College-Conservatory of Music (University of Cincinnati) and a Professional Studies Diploma (Graduate level) in Orchestral Conducting from the Mannes College of Music (New York City).     Dr. Nies holds an MM in Double Bass Performance from the Yale School of Music, where she studied with Homer Mensch (former member of the New York Philharmonic and Juilliard faculty member). While at Yale, she served as Co-Principal Bass of the Yale Philharmonia (Graduate School Orchestra); Principal Bass of the Contemporary Music Ensemble; and Co-Principal Bass, Yale Philharmonia/Principal Bass, Yale Philharmonia Chamber Orchestra for their European tour. She also served as the Principal Bass of the Yale-In-Norfolk Summer Music Festival (Chamber Orchestra and Chamber Music Festival) while a graduate student and was invited back to perform with the Yale-In-Norfolk Chamber Orchestra as Principal Bass after graduation.  

She also holds a BM from the University of Miami, where she studied double bass with Lucas Drew. While an undergraduate student, she was a member of the Ft. Lauderdale Symphony and performed with the Miami Philharmonic, the West Palm Beach Symphony, the Boca Raton Symphony, and the Miami Beach Symphony; studied with Jon Deak (former Associate Principal Bassist, New York Philharmonic) and Murray Grodner (former faculty member, Jacobs School of Music, IU) at the Aspen Music Festival and coached with Eugene Levinson (former Principal Bass, New York Philharmonic; former Juilliard and Leningrad Conservatory faculty) at the ISB International School for Double Bass.

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