Music at Nebraska Wesleyan is excited to announce the dates for this year’s honor festival ensembles. The band and choir components will take place during different weeks.

Wesleyan Honors Choir
The Nebraska Wesleyan University Honors Choir gathers 100 of the region's most promising high school singers for an inspiring and immersive choral experience with NWU's choir director, Tom Trenney, and guest composer/conductor, Kyle Pederson.

Nominations
We encourage high school teachers to recommend as many singers as they desire through this choir students nomination form. Nebraska Wesleyan accepts nominations until December 1, 2024 and informs teachers and students of selections by December 18. Selected students are responsible for completing a registration form, including a $50 participation fee (which covers music rental, three meals, snacks, and a t-shirt). Students are expected to prepare the music in advance of the festival. Opportunities to participate in vocal masterclasses (musical theater and classical), conducting classes, and scholarship auditions will be available as well.

Our Conductors
Kyle Pederson is a Minneapolis-based composer, lyricist, pianist, and educator. He enjoys working at the intersection of the sacred and secular, and his lyrics and music invite the choir and audience to be agents of hope, grace and compassion in the world. Pederson was awarded the American Prize in Choral Composition in 2019, and the ACDA Genesis Prize in 2020. Pederson has an undergraduate degree from Augustana University, a Masters Degree in Education from University of St. Thomas, and an MFA in Music Composition from Vermont College of Fine Art. His work is commissioned, performed, and recorded by community, school, and professional choirs around the world.

Tom Trenney
Tom Trenney is director of choirs at Nebraska Wesleyan University. NWU’s choirs had the honor of performing at state, regional and national conventions of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), and are award winners in the American Prize for choral ensembles. His 50 published choral compositions are sung at churches and schools across the country, and he was a feature performer at places like Kansas City's Kauffman Center, Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center and NYC's Carnegie Hall.

Wesleyan Honors Bands
The 2025 Nebraska Wesleyan University Honors Bands will bring together students from across the region to form two bands that will rehearse and perform with NWU’s band director, Joshua Roach, DMA and guest conductor, Jon Noworyta, DMA. One band will be an audition-based group, and the other will be nomination-based. Students in both groups will rehearse and perform with Noworyta and Roach.

Selected students are responsible for completing a registration form, including a $50 participation fee (which covers music expenses, three meals, and a t-shirt). Students are expected to prepare the music in advance of the festival.

Nomination-based “Symphonic Band”
We encourage teachers to nominate as many students as they desire.
Directors should use the director nominations form (use one form to submit Wind Ensemble auditions and Symphonic Band nominations).
Individuals submitting single-nominations should use the symphonic band single nomination form.

Our Conductors

Jon Noworyta is the associate professor of music and director of bands, instrumental activities and educational outreach at the University of Indianapolis. There, he administers all aspects of the woodwind, brass and percussion area, teaches conducting and courses in music education, and conducts the symphonic wind ensemble, pep band, and opera. A versatile conductor who is equally comfortable with orchestras as well as wind or brass groups, Noworyta is the director of the Crossroads Brass Band of Indianapolis, IN, the artistic director of the Queen City Freedom Band of Cincinnati and the former assistant conductor of the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra. Noworyta is a 21-year veteran public school music educator. Ensembles under his direction have given notable local, state, national and international performances, the most significant being Carnegie Hall in 2009, the 2010 Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic and the 2012 Music for All National Festival. Noworyta has led groups at such legendary venues as Chicago's Symphony Center, the Kennedy Center, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Carnegie Hall.

Professionally, Noworyta has collaborated with members of the Buffalo and Dayton philharmonics, the Elgin, Knoxville and Indianapolis symphonies, the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra. Noworyta has accompanied world-renowned piano soloist James Tocco in concerti by George Gershwin and David Maslanka.

Noworyta’s professional affiliations have included the NAFME, CBDNA, WASBE, NABBA, NBA, Pride Bands Alliance, GLSEN, the Conductors Guild and the Indiana, Illinois, New York (NYSSMA) and Ohio Music Educators Associations. He currently is an editor for the Indiana Music Educators Association publication INfORM, sits on the Committee for Diversity, Equality and Inclusion for the North American Brass Band Association and is listed in the Who's Who in America Educator's Edition.

A Western New York native, Noworyta holds degrees from Baldwin-Wallace University (BME), Northwestern University (MM) and the College-Conservatory of Music of the University of Cincinnati (DMA). Additional study at the Eastman School of Music, the New England Conservatory and the Juilliard School, has given Noworyta the opportunity to work with the major conducting pedagogues in the field today.

Joshua Roach
Joshua Roach is director of instrumental activities at Nebraska Wesleyan University. He has also taught at Peru State College, the Crane School of Music in New York, the College of New Jersey, California Lutheran University and Southwestern Michigan College. Before teaching full-time in higher education, Roach lived in Los Angeles, where he was the music director of the Pacific Symphony Youth Wind Ensemble and instrumental coach for Diamond Bar High School. For 11 years, he worked with middle school and high school students at the Idyllwild Arts Summer Program. From 2015-17, he also taught trumpet for the Phantom Regiment drum and bugle corps.

Schedule of Events:

Thursday, February 6, 2025
1 p.m. - NWU Music Scholarship auditions (optional for seniors considering NWU)
3 p.m. - Registration
4 p.m. - Rehearsal
5 p.m. - Pizza party (included)
6 p.m. - Rehearsal
8:30 p.m. - Adjourn

Friday, February 7, 2025
9 a.m. - Rehearsal
10 a.m. - Breakout sessions/ sectional rehearsal
11:15 a.m. - Lunch (included)
12:15 p.m. - Concert by NWU Choirs
1 p.m. Rehearsal
2:30 p.m. - Snack break
2:45 p.m. Breakout sessions/sectional rehearsal
4 p.m. - Rehearsal on stage
5 p.m. - Dinner
6:15 p.m. - Warm-up
7 p.m. - Concert
7:50 p.m. - Farewell

Thursday, February 13, 2025
1 p.m. - NWU Music Scholarship auditions (optional for seniors considering NWU) begin
2:30pm - Check-in begins
4 p.m. - Rehearsals and activities begin
6:15/6:45 p.m. - Pizza party (included)
9:15 p.m. - Adjourn

Friday, February 14, 2025
9 a.m. - Rehearsals and activities begin (lunch included)
5:30 p.m. - Adjourn

Saturday, February 15, 2025
9:15 a.m. - Rehearsals and activities begin (brunch included)
2:30 p.m. - Performance
3:45 p.m. - Farewell

Date: February 6 - 15, 2025

Location:
Nebraska Wesleyan University, 5000 Saint Paul Avenue, Lincoln, NE 68504.

Click here for more information.