Kelly Corcoran, Artistic Director

Kelly Corcoran’s passion for explorative music started during her time in Boston performing Pierrot Lunaire as a young singer over 20 years ago. Since then, Corcoran has always been drawn towards music that stretches the listener and explores the full spectrum of sound and expression. While at Indiana University, Corcoran regularly collaborated with composers and was a founder of The Polaris Project where she conducted Berg’s Chamber Concerto. One of the highlights of her seven-year tenure as Associate Conductor for the Nashville Symphony was conducting the orchestra in Corigliano’s Pied Piper Fantasy. Corcoran is dedicated to contemporary music and attended the Lucerne Festival's master class in conducting, focusing on contemporary orchestral literature with Pierre Boulez.

​

Named “Best Classical Conductor” in 2015 by the Nashville Scene, Kelly Corcoran is a passionate advocate for the robust place of classical music in our lives and the lives of future generations. Corcoran is Artistic Director of Intersection, a contemporary music ensemble dedicated to challenging the traditional concert experience with concerts for all ages. Corcoran conducted the Nashville Symphony for nine seasons, both as Associate Conductor and Director of the Symphony Chorus, where she conducted the orchestra in hundreds of performances and was the primary conductor for the education and community engagement concerts. Corcoran founded the Nashville Philharmonic Orchestra nearly twenty years ago and continues to serve on the board.

​

Corcoran has appeared as a guest conductor with many major orchestras including The Cleveland Orchestra, the Atlanta, Detroit, Houston, Milwaukee, and National Symphonies, often with return engagements. Abroad, Corcoran has appeared with orchestras in Argentina, England, Spain, Mexico and Chile. Corcoran has worked with a range of artists and styles such as Chris Botti, Leslie Odom Jr, Bela Fleck and Amy Grant, film scores in concert, and as a regular conductor with The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses tour and National Geographic: Symphony for our World.

​

Corcoran attended The Boston Conservatory and Indiana University. Her primary mentors are Leonard Slatkin and Marin Alsop. Corcoran cares deeply about equity, our youth and the future of classical music and participated in REAL (Racial Equity in Arts Leadership), Project Music, Leadership Nashville, Restorative Justice & The Arts, and Leadership Music, and is an Advisor for Music Makes Us, Nashville's music education initiative in metro schools. Additionally, Corcoran recently completed an MPH (Master of Public Health) in Health Behavior from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and plans to expand her work in the interaction of arts and health.

​

You can learn more about Kelly at her website, kellycorcoran.net.