A New Resonance in Providence
We are thrilled to feature the lineup of world-class commissioned works debuting at the ACDA Eastern Region Conference in Providence. This year’s commissions represent a vibrant cross-section of choral artistry, bridging the gap between contemporary pop innovation and deep-rooted choral traditions. From groundbreaking collaborations with our headlining ensembles to bespoke works written specifically for our Honor Choir students, these seven composers have crafted a soundtrack that reflects the diverse, evolving voice of our region.
Headlining Ensemble Commissioned Composers
Scott Hoying is a three-time GRAMMY® Award-winning and EMMY® Award-winning singer, songwriter, producer, arranger, and artist. While studying music at USC, he discovered his passion for a cappella and started the a cappella group, Pentatonix. The vocal quintet quickly rose to international fame and has collaborated with Kelly Clarkson, Dolly Parton, Maren Morris, Jennifer Hudson, Stevie Wonder, and Andrea Bocelli, among others. With Pentatonix, Hoying has won three GRAMMY® Awards, sold more than 13 million albums, and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The Pentatonix YouTube channel has 20 million subscribers and more than 5.6 billion views. In 2023, Hoying released his solo debut EP, Parallel, with Sony/BMG. The standout track “Mars” was featured on The TODAY Show and The Kelly Clarkson Show. Hoying’s solo song “Rose Without The Thorns”, a tribute to his husband Mark Hoying, earned him his first solo nomination for Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella at the 2025 GRAMMY® Awards. Hoying has a long history of championing youth and the arts. Notably, in 2023, Hoying received an EMMY® Award for “Outstanding Music Direction” of America’s Youth Choir at Super Bowl LVII. He co-created the girl group Citizen Queen and the all-kids a cappella collective, Acapop! KIDS. Hoying is very active in uplifting the LGBTQ+ and queer youth communities working with GLAAD, LA Pride, and The Trevor Project. Hoying is a multi- hyphenate talent across all mediums. Other credits include: the USA Today Best-Selling children’s book with husband Mark Hoying, How Lucky Am I? and their upcoming children’s book, Fa La La Family; Disney+ High School Musical: The Musical: The Series; Netflix #1 film Meet Me Next Christmas; Meghan Trainor (vocal arranger/producer); Disney California Adventure Park’s World of Color Happiness.
Shara Nova is a composer, vocalist, and interdisciplinary artist whose work moves fluidly between indie rock, contemporary classical music, opera, and large-scale participatory performance. She has released six albums under the moniker My Brightest Diamond and has built an expansive career writing for professional ensembles, community choirs, and orchestras while maintaining an active international performing life.
Her choral and vocal compositions have been performed by The Crossing, Conspirare, Cantus Domus, Roomful of Teeth, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Detroit Opera’s Touring Company, and numerous university and community choirs. Nova has composed orchestral and chamber works for yMusic, Brooklyn Rider, Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, and the BBC Concert Orchestra, among others.
Nova’s interdisciplinary work spans theater, film, and installation. She has collaborated with artists including Matthew Barney (River of Fundament), visual artist Matthew Ritchie (Infinite Movement), playwright and librettist Andrew Ondrejcak (Kings of Macedonia; You Us We All; Hermès), puppeteer Lake Simons (Alice in Wonderland), and playwright Adam Rapp (Trueblinka, directed by Simon Hammerstein).
For the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s 125th anniversary season, Nova co-created “Look Around” with director Mark DeChiazza, a three-hour, citywide participatory work featuring over 600 musicians from more than 20 local choirs and ensembles alongside the symphony.
Nova is producer, composer, and featured vocalist on the 2023 Grammy-nominated album The Blue Hour (Nonesuch Records), created with the string orchestra A Far Cry and co-composers Rachel Grimes, Angélica Negrón, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and Caroline Shaw.
As a performer, she starred in Justin Peck’s Tony Award–winning Broadway production Illinoise, a dance-theater adaptation of Sufjan Stevens’s album Illinois—on which Nova also appears—performing at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Park Avenue Armory, and the St. James Theatre.
Her honors include fellowships and awards from Kresge Arts, Carolina Performing Arts Creative Futures, Knight Foundation, United States Artists, New Music USA, and Opera America. Recordings featuring her work with Conspirare and The Crossing received multiple Grammy nominations in 2023.
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 has been awarded both the American Prize in Choral Composition and the AC-DA Genesis Prize. His music resonates for its “evocative use of harmony, melody, rhythm and texture”– and is “incredibly inspirational, moving, and spiritual” (American Prize).
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 and is published by ECS, Walton, Santa Barbara, Hal Leonard, Beckenhorst, Carl Fischer, Alfred, Gentry, and Hinshaw. Additional information and links to Kyle’s music can be found at kylepederson.com.
Honor Choir Commissioned Composers
Tehillah Alphonso is a Nigerian-American singer, teacher, and GRAMMY®-nominated arranger based in Los Angeles, California. A proud Summa Cum Laude graduate of the University of Southern California, she received her B.M. in Popular Music Performance from the Thornton School of Music and was named Outstanding Graduate in 2020. Upon graduating, she quickly made a name for herself in the live and recorded music industry in Los Angeles, having sung on a number of films (e.g. Wicked, Encanto, NOPE, Black Panther; Wakanda Forever, etc.); television shows (The Rookie, Minx, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds); and alongside many notable artists, including Lebo M., Aloe Blacc, Fantasia, Jennifer Hudson, Billie Eilish, and Olivia Rodrigo. Tehillah now serves as the a cappella director of Pacifica Christian High School’s award-winning a cappella group, Wolf PACappella, and she has since returned to USC as an adjunct professor in Popular Music Voice.
Ben Bram (he/him) is a 2x Grammy and Emmy Award-winning vocal arranger, producer, engineer, and educator based in Brooklyn, NY and Los Angeles, CA. As co-creator of renowned pop a cappella group Pentatonix, summer vocal program A Cappella Academy, R&B ensemble Citizen Queen, and children’s music brand Acapop! KIDS, Ben has left a lasting impact on the vocal music world. He has had the privilege to work with many artists including the Backstreet Boys, Sabrina Carpenter, Jacob Collier, Tori Kelly, Trousdale, and The King’s Singers. Ben’s work has also extended to film and TV, where he has contributed to NBC’s The Sing-Off, Glee, and the Pitch Perfect films. His vocal arrangements can also be heard in commercials for major brands such as Super Bowl LVII, Honda, CoverGirl, and Lifetime. His latest project is the formation of the New York Vocal Collective, a professional-level multi-genre choir based in New York City.
Dr. Rollo Dilworth is the Elaine Brown Choral Chair, Vocal Arts Department Chair and Professor of Choral Music Education in Temple University’s Center for the Performing and Cinematic Arts in Philadelphia, PA. He has served on the faculty since 2009. In addition to teaching undergraduate and graduate level courses in choral music education, Dilworth serves as conductor for the Temple University Singing Owls Campus/Community Chorus, as artistic director for Singing City, and as conductor for the School District of Philadelphia High School All-City Chorus. Over 200 of Dilworth’s choral compositions and arrangements have been published, and many are part of the Henry Leck Creating Artistry Choral Series with the Hal Leonard Corporation. Additional choral publications can be found in the catalogs of Santa Barbara Music Publishing, Colla Voce, Walton Music and EC Schirmer. He has conducted more than 70 all-state choirs at the elementary, middle and high school levels, and remains an active clinician and frequent guest conductor of festival, community, church and professional choirs. He has researched, lectured and presented extensively on various topics including African American choral music, choral pedagogy, composing/arranging for choirs, social justice, social emotional learning, cultural appropriation, urban music education, community engagement, and diversity, equity and inclusion. He is a contributing author for the Essential Elements for Choir and the Experiencing Choral Music textbook series, both published by the Hal Leonard Corporation/Glencoe/McGraw-Hill Publications, and for Music Express! Teachers Magazine. He has authored three books of choral warm-up exercises intended for elementary and secondary choral ensembles, entitled Choir Builders: Fundamental Vocal Techniques for General and Classroom Use (2006); Choir Builders for Growing Voices (2009); and Choir Builders for Growing Voices 2 (2014). Dilworth serves on the national boards of Chorus America and the Presser Foundation; he is an active life member of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA). He also holds memberships with several other organizations, including the National Association for Music Education (NAfME), the National Collegiate Choral Organization (NCCO) and the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP).
A GRAMMY® nominated singer and composer from Michigan, Blake Morgan is a multi-talented musician, playing several instruments, recording and composing in many different genres, and performing with a mastery of vocal flexibility.
A gifted vocalist, Blake has sung professionally all over the world as a soloist and also with several GRAMMY® award winning ensembles. In the popular music realm, Blake has worked as a studio session singer for artists like Bon Iver, Sid Sriram, and Paul Simon, and he currently records as a Decca Classics artist with VOCES8; his versatile voice can be heard on Netflix, National Public Radio, and in movie soundtracks. He is also sought after for his jazz background and has collaborated with many internationally recognized singers and instrumentalists, including Kurt Elling, Roger Treece, and Jacob Collier.
In recent years, Blake has gained international notoriety for his signature sound as a composer and arranger. His music has been performed all across the globe, from Sydney Opera House to the BBC Proms Festival, and he has received commissions from many of the world’s leading groups such as The King’s Singers, Take 6, Chanticleer, Jason Max Ferdinand Singers, VOCES8, The U.S. Airforce, Conspirare, and The Manhattan Transfer with their latest Grammy® nominated album “Fifty.” Many of his pieces can be heard on YouTube where they have collected millions of views, and in 2025 Blake released the first instalment of a multi-volume EP project with VOCES8, featuring his arrangements and compositions: “Windows.”
As an accomplished ensemble musician, Blake is the only singer to have been a member of both full-time choral ensembles in the United States, Cantus and Chanticleer. He has also performed with several award-winning chamber groups in the United States including Conspirare, Audivi, Pomerium, and The Choir of Trinity Wall Street Church in NYC. Blake was a member of Conspirare when the ensemble won its Grammy® for “Best Choral Performance” in 2015. Blake currently sings with the full-time professional British chamber group, VOCES8, recording and touring with the ensemble internationally. For more info regarding VOCES8 and Blake’s concert schedule with the group, visit the VOCES8 website.
Blake holds degrees in music performance and education from Western Michigan University and has experience as a teacher of choir, private voice, guitar, and percussion. Additionally, he has provided lectures on systems of temperament in choral music, popular vocal group history, and composing/arranging at various academic institutions including Cambridge University, University of Miami’s Frost School of Music, Western Michigan University, and University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music. Blake also helped to lead masterclasses during his time in Chanticleer and Cantus, and now coaches singers/choirs with VOCES8 during the ensemble’s workshops, summer school, and Digital Academy offerings.
Away from his professional engagements Blake enjoys exploring his love of folk music. Often writing under the monikers of Goodnight Mr. Max and Esto, he has released several albums of original songs. The most recent release, Houghton-Hancock Hum-Alongs features tracks inspired by the beautiful Upper Peninsula of his native state of Michigan. Blake’s music has received airplay on NPR, the BBC, and he has toured internationally with Garrison Keillor of A Prairie Home Companion.