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. She has served as cover conductor and a conducting assistant for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, associate conductor of the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, 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 the Curb Youth Symphony, the Vanderbilt Youth Orchestras program (Blair School of Music), Cincinnati Contemporary Music Ensemble, the Greater New Haven Youth Orchestra, the Branford College Chamber Orchestra (Yale), and Opera-To-Go (Cincinnati).

Guest conducting engagements have included concerts with the Hradec Kralove Philharmonic (Czech Republic), Black Sea Philharmonic (Romania), River Cities Symphony, Music Under Construction (Contemporary Music Series, New York City), 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 2023 Rome Music Festival.