BIO

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Nolan Williams, Jr., Founder & CEO of NEWorks Productions, a leading producer of impact-arts programming and entertainment since 2003, is best described as a creative force. An award-winning producer, music director, composer/lyricist, playwright, filmmaker, musicologist, and cultural curator, the multi-hyphenate Williams, Jr. has dedicated his professional career to creating works that illuminate issues of civil rights, social justice, and cultural curiosities. His body of work includes: choral/orchestral works premiered by major American orchestras; music for television; the bestselling African American Heritage Hymnal (over 500,000 copies sold worldwide); songwriting credits on two Grammy-nominated projects; arts and educational festivals produced in partnership with The Kennedy Center and Philadelphia’s Mann Center; cultural programming developed with the Smithsonian, U.S. State Department and multiple embassies; video/documentary projects, including the star-studded viral video “I Have A Right To Vote” (over two million global media hits) and “Becoming Douglass Commonwealth” (winner of ten media prizes); and a slate of theatrical productions, including his critically-hailed new musical, GRACE (winner of eleven 2022 Broadway World Washington, DC awards, including best musical and best new musical).

A resident of Washington, DC, Williams, Jr. was named the Kennedy Center’s inaugural Social Practice Resident in 2019. He further serves as Chair of the Center's Community Advisory Board. 

Williams, Jr. also serves as artistic director of the NEWorks Voices of Inspiration and is founding artistic director of the Washington Douglass Chorale. 

Most recently, Williams, Jr. was featured speaker for week nine of the Chautauquan Institution African American Heritage House lecture series. He is also a new appointee to the Howard University Board of Visitors for the Divinity School.

Earlier this year, he was named a DCCAH Arts & Humanities Fellow, honored with a 2024 Living Legends Award for Service to Humanity, and recognized by Oberlin College during Black History Month as one of 21 trailblazing Black alumni.