Roger Emerson, Guest Conductor
Nick McBride, Artistic Director
Brandon Williams, Guest Conductor/Composer
Stephen Schwartz, Guest Artist
This performance showcases THIS IS ME, an inspiring celebration of music, identity, and community. Featuring special guest artist Stephen Schwartz (Wicked), this unique festival creates a safe, supportive space for LGBTQ+ students and allies to unite through song.
The first half of the concert spotlights the National Youth Chorus, led by renowned conductor and composer Roger Emerson, in a special celebration of his 50 years of composition.
ROGER EMERSON, GUEST CONDUCTOR
Roger Emerson is a professional composer and arranger with over 900 choral titles in print and over 30 million copies in circulation. He is the most widely performed composer/arranger of popular choral music and vocal jazz in the world today. His works include the choral arrangements of Josh Groban's You Raise Me Up, Seasons of Love, from RENT, Defying Gravity from WICKED, Joyful, Joyful from SISTER ACT, Don't Stop Believin' from GLEE, and most recently, My Shot from HAMILTON. In addition, his vocal jazz arrangements of Over The Rainbow, Vincent, Blue Skies and I Wish are some of the most performed of all-time. Mr. Emerson has been the recipient of ASCAP's Standard Award for 30 years running and his works have been performed at the White House, Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center. He is in constant demand as a lecturer on pop music, vocal jazz and the changing voice and has appeared at numerous MENC, ACDA and JEN conferences.
NICK MCBRIDE, GUEST CONDUCTOR
Dr. Nicholas McBride maintains an active career as a music teacher-educator, researcher, and conductor. He is Assistant Professor of Choral Music Education at The College of New Jersey.
He also supervises senior-level student teachers, and conducts TCNJ ‘s College Choir; an ensemble he has prepared for collaborative performances with the Philharmonia Orchestra of New York and The Philadelphia Orchestra.
Formerly, he served as Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Education at Westminster Choir College where, at the age of 25, he became the youngest full-time faculty member in the history of the college. Dr. McBride has presented internationally on choral conducting and general music teaching techniques, and has conducted choirs and various music ensembles in Austria, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Slovenia and Switzerland. In addition, he has presented at the regional and national conferences of the National Association for Music Education (NAfME), the NCCO Conference (National Collegiate Choral Organization), the NJ-ACDA (New Jersey American Choral Director’s Association) conference, and has served on the NJ-ACDA State Executive Board. McBride is a contributing author to the texts Teaching Music through Performance in Middle School Choir and Planning Instruction in Music, both by GIA Chicago, and has published scholarly articles in the Music Educators Journal and the Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education. His research agenda focuses on teacher education, music teacher identity, LGBTQ issues in music education, and gender in the choral music classroom.
McBride is in frequent demand as a guest conductor, clinician and adjudicator for elementary, middle and high school choirs. Recent engagements include the 2017 New Jersey All-State Elementary Choir, the 2016 All-North Jersey Junior High Treble Chorus, and clinician for the 2014 New Jersey Region 1 High School Choral Festival.
Dr. McBride is proud to have spent nearly a decade as a middle and high school choral director and general music teacher in the (NJ) Public Schools, where his choirs performed regularly on the stages of Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center and with the Philadelphia Pops Orchestra at the Kimmel Center. He earned a doctorate in Music and Music Education from Columbia University – Teachers College, his dual Masters with honors in both Choral Conducting and Music Education from Northwestern University, and a Bachelors in Music Education magna cum laude from Westminster Choir College.
BRANDON WILLIAMS, GUEST CONDUCTOR
Brandon Williams is an Assistant Professor of Choral Music and Choral Music Education at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. He conducts the Rutgers Voorhees Choir (Carnegie Hall 2019, Eastern ACDA 2020) and teaches a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses related to choral music education. Dr. Williams also appears internationally as a guest conductor, clinician, and presenter. Dr. Williams amassed a decade of middle and high school teaching experience in St. Louis, Missouri, where he also served on the voice faculty at Maryville University and as a conductor with the St. Louis Symphony IN UNISON Chorus and the St. Louis Children’s Choirs. His school ensembles received invitations to perform at the 2010 and 2013 Missouri Music Educators Association conventions, and his middle school ensemble was featured on GIA’s DVD entitled “How to Make a Good Choir Sound Great!” Dr. Williams has been awarded the 2009 Missouri Choral Directors Association Prelude Award for excellence in choral music, an Outstanding Teacher Award from the University of Missouri-Columbia Honors College, and the 2020-21 Rutgers Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching Innovations.
Dr. Williams holds degrees from Western Illinois University, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Michigan State University. He also completed an Artist Teacher Diploma from the Choral Music Experience–Institute for Choral Teacher Education. In addition to his articles in the Choral Journal and theMusic Educators Journal, Dr. Williams is the editor of Choral Reflections—a collection of interviews with thirty leading conductor-teachers. He has numerous choral compositions and arrangements published with Hal Leonard, G. Schirmer, Mark Foster, and Colla Voce. Dr. Williams is a member of the American Choral Directors Association, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, and the National Association for Music Education.
STEPHEN SCHWARTZ, GUEST ARTIST
Stephen Schwartz was born in New York City on March 6, 1948. He studied piano and composition at the Juilliard School of Music while in high school and graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 1968 with a B.F.A. in Drama. Upon coming back to live in New York City, he went to work as an A&R producer for RCA Records, but shortly thereafter began to work in the Broadway theatre. His first major credit was the title song for the play BUTTERFLIES ARE FREE; the song was eventually used in the movie version as well.
In 1971, he wrote the music and new lyrics for GODSPELL, for which he won two Grammys among other awards. This was followed by the English texts, in collaboration with Leonard Bernstein, for Bernstein’s MASS, which opened the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. The following year, he wrote the music and lyrics for PIPPIN, and two years later, THE MAGIC SHOW. At one point, GODSPELL, PIPPIN and THE MAGIC SHOW were all running on Broadway simultaneously.
He next wrote the music and lyrics for THE BAKER’S WIFE, followed by a musical version of Studs Terkel’s WORKING, to which he contributed four songs and which he also adapted and directed, winning a Drama Desk Award as best director. He also co-directed the television production, which was presented as part of the PBS “American Playhouse” series.
Other work for the musical theatre includes lyrics to RAGS (music by Charles Strouse), music and lyrics for CHILDREN OF EDEN, and two musicals produced overseas, MIT EVENTYR (MY FAIRY TALE) in Denmark and SCHIKANEDER in Austria. He has also written songs for two musicals for young audiences, CAPTAIN LOUIE and MY SON, PINOCCHIO. Compilation revues of his work include SNAPSHOTS and, for Princess Cruise Lines, MAGIC TO DO.
For film, he collaborated with composer Alan Menken on the songs for Disney’s POCAHONTAS, for which he received two Academy Awards and another Grammy, THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, and ENCHANTED. He also provided songs for DreamWorks’ first animated feature, THE PRINCE OF EGYPT, for which he won another Academy Award for the song “When You Believe.” THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME and THE PRINCE OF EGYPT have both been adapted for the stage.
Mr. Schwartz’s most recent stage musical, WICKED, opened in the fall of 2003 and is currently running on Broadway and in several other productions around the world. He received another Grammy for the cast recording, and in 2008, WICKED reached its 1900th performance on Broadway, making Mr. Schwartz the only songwriter in Broadway history ever to have three shows run more than 1900 performances.
His first opera, SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON, premiered at Opera Santa Barbara in the fall of 2009 and was subsequently produced by New York City Opera. His frequently-performed choral works include “Testimony”, based on the It Gets Better Project, “Keramos” and part of the “Tyler Clemente Suite.” He has also released two singer/songwriter CDs, RELUCTANT PILGRIM and UNCHARTED TERRITORY.
Mr. Schwartz has been awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2015, he received the Isabelle Stevenson Tony Award for his humanitarian and mentorship contributions to the theatre. A book about his career, “Defying Gravity,” has been released by Applause Books.
Under the auspices of the ASCAP Foundation, he has been the artistic director of musical theatre workshops in New York and Los Angeles for over twenty years, as well as conducting workshops for aspiring musical theatre writers and performers in countries around the world, including Australia, Germany, Latvia and Kenya. He is also a past President and current Council Member of the Dramatists’ Guild.
PROGRAM
Saturday March 21, 2026 at 8:00 PM
LINCOLN CENTER
National Youth Chorus
Roger Emerson, guest conductor
TRADITIONAL arr. ROGER EMERSON Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel
TRADITIONAL arr. ROGER EMERSON Shoshone Love Song (The Heart’s Friend)
IRVING BERLIN arr. ROGER EMERSON Blue Skies
JONI MITCHELL arr. ROGER EMERSON Both Sides Now
BRENDAN GRAHAM and ROLF LOVLAND arr. ROGER EMERSON You Raise Me Up
ALAN MENKIN, DAVID ZIPPEL, and STEPHEN SCHWARTZ arr. ROGER EMERSON Go The Distance/Defying Gravity
National Concert Chorus
Brandon Williams, guest conductor
Nick McBride, guest conductor
BRANDON WILLIAMS Seeking Light
BRANDON WILLIAMS Commissioned Piece (World Premiere)
GWYNETH WALKER Refuge (From Sing Evermore!)
STEPHEN SCHWARTZ Testimony
KYLE PEDERSON Does the World Say?
BENJ PASEK and JUSTIN PAUL This Is Me