Music Director

Dan Allcott is in his 21st year as our Music Director, and is the second-longest serving conductor of the Upper Cumberland’s only professional orchestra.

      Professor and Director of Orchestras, Maestro Allcott joined the Tennessee Tech University faculty in 2003. He concluded a 10-year relationship with Atlanta Ballet in 2010, where he conducted more than 300 performances as music director and principal conductor. In 2010, he was named to an additional position as Music Director of the Oak Ridge Symphony and Chorus.

      Allcott studied conducting with Imre Pallo and Thomas Baldner at Indiana University, and in 1996, was appointed the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra's Schmitt Conducting Fellow, a position he held for three years. In 1998 Allcott was named the first Herbert von Karajan Fellow of the American Austrian Foundation at the Salzburg Festival and has been a participant in the Nicolai Malko and Grzegorz Fitelberg competitions in Europe. He has conducted in master classes with Michael Tilson Thomas and Gunther Schuller with the American Symphony Orchestra League and the Conductors' Guild.

      Allcott received a master of music in cello performance from Indiana University where he continued his doctoral studies in both the conducting and cello programs. For three years, he was associate instructor of conducting at Indiana University, frequently conducting the university's five orchestras and the New Music Ensemble.

      Active as a guest conductor, educator and clinician, Maestro Allcott has conducted over 75 performances with the Bryan Symphony. In May he was conductor at the inaugural Oregon Coast Youth Symphony Festival. In addition to his work with the Bryan Symphony and the TTU Department of Music orchestra and string programs, he is Artistic Advisor and Summer Program Director of Eastport Strings in Maine.