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Nolan Williams, Jr. is a creative powerhouse and founding CEO of NEWorks Productions, a premier producer of socially impactful arts and entertainment since 2003. A multi-hyphenate artist—award-winning producer, music director, composer/lyricist, playwright, filmmaker, musicologist, and cultural curator—Williams has devoted his career to illuminating themes of civil rights, social justice, and cultural identity through the arts.

His prolific body of work spans multiple disciplines and platforms, including:

• Film and media projects like the star-studded viral video I Have A Right To Vote, the acclaimed documentary Becoming Douglass Commonwealth, and his award-winning film short Rise Up & Fight, which has received 92 international honors, including the 2025 Cannes Film Awards Prize for "Best Director, Animation Music Video";

• Theatrical productions, most notably GRACE, his award-winning new musical (11 Broadway World Washington, DC awards in 2022, including “Best Musical”);

• Composer credits that include choral and orchestral compositions premiered by major U.S. orchestras and choirs, music for television & film, songwriting credits on two Grammy-nominated projects, and a recording of his arrangement of "We Shall Overcome" that was sent to space in 2014 on NASA's first test flight of the spacecraft Orion;

• Music Editorial credits for two hymnal projects, including the bestselling African American Heritage Hymnal (500,000+ copies sold globally);

• Arts and educational projects produced in collaboration with the Kennedy Center, Mann Center (Philadelphia), Fulton County Arts & Culture, Franklin Institute, Dr. Phillips Center (Orlando), and more;

• Cultural programming curated with the Smithsonian, U.S. State Department, and international embassies; and,

• Curation of cultural exhibits, including "DC Home Rule 50," mounted at the DC History Center from April 2023 to February 2025, "West Side/South Side," a 2018 touring photo exhibit commemorating the centennial birthday of American composer Leonard Bernstein (Washington, DC, Philadelphia, PA and Atlanta, GA), and the 2002 “Freedom” exhibition, a celebration of African American history and heritage from emancipation to the end of the 20th century. The "Freedom" exhibit, produced in collaboration with Lon Walls Communications, was adopted by the U.S. Army and toured throughout the nation over a five-year period, including mountings at the Essence Music Festival and the NAACP Image Awards.

The roster of artists with whom Nolan has collaborated reads like a list of who’s who in American music and entertainment including: Aretha Franklin, Audra McDonald, Billy Porter, Bobby McFerrin, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Carole King, Chaka Khan, Christopher Jackson, Denyce Graves, Dionne Warwick, Esperanza Spalding, Gladys Knight, Hill Harper, India.Arie, Jordin Sparks, Lenny Kravitz, Leslie Odom, Jr., Louis Gossett, Jr., Natalie Cole, Patti LaBelle, Raul Esparza, Smokie Robinson, Taye Diggs, Vanessa Williams and Yolanda Adams. 

A graduate of Oberlin College (BA, Music) and Howard University (MDiv), Nolan was bestowed an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Richmond Virginia Seminary in 2013. In 2019, the Kennedy Center’s National Performing Arts Committee awarded him their prestigious Arts Advocacy Award. And remarkably, over the course of the past five years, Nolan and the artistic projects he has produced, directed, written, composed, and hosted have earned over 100 honors, including 33 film prizes, ten Telly Awards (one gold, six silver and three bronze prizes), nine Davey Awards (five gold and four silver prizes), two AVA Digital Awards Platinum Prizes, two Anthem Awards Silver Prizes, two Global Music Awards (one silver medal, one bronze medal), a Communicator Award of Excellence for Best Documentary, and the 2023 Legacy Award from the Coalition for African Americans in the Performing Arts (CAAPA).

Based in Washington, DC, Williams was the Kennedy Center’s inaugural Social Practice Resident from 2019 to 2024. He serves on the Howard University Board of Visitors for the School of Divinity and is former chair of the Kennedy Center Community Advisory Board, a board on which he faithfully served from 2010 to 2025.