Laura Leigh Spillane is the Interim Associate Director of Choral Activities and Lecturer of Music Education at the UT College of Music, where she teaches courses in music education, graduate choral literature, and choral conducting, and conducts the Concert Choir. Prior to joining the faculty at Tennessee, she taught courses and led ensembles at Saddleback College and the Claremont Colleges in Southern California. As Senior Teaching Assistant for the USC Thornton School of Music, she served as Associate Conductor of USC’s premier choral ensemble, the Chamber Singers, and as Lead Conductor of the University Chorus.

A conductor, music educator, and soprano from the southeastern United States, Spillane previously served as a choral director at both the middle and high school levels in the Fulton County and Gwinnett County School Districts in Georgia and holds over a decade of professional church music service. She was honored as the inaugural recipient of the GA American Choral Directors Association Young Director Award in 2019.

Spillane holds the Doctor of Musical Arts in Choral Music from the University of Southern California, where her fields of study were Musicology, Vocology, and Instrumental Conducting. Her dissertation research examined how trends in written range and tessitura impact vocal stamina in mixed-voice choral ensembles. She also holds the Master of Music degree in Conducting from the University of Georgia, where she was a Carl Hoveland Fellow and graduate assistant, and the Bachelor of Music Education degree from Reinhardt University, where she was a summa cum laude graduate. Her conducting teachers include Cristian Grases, Tram Sparks, Larry Livingston, Jo-Michael Scheibe, Daniel Bara, J.D. Burnett, and Martha Shaw. She is an active member of ACDA, NAfME, and NCCO..