Meet the Conductors
2025 OAKE NATIONAL CHOIR CONDUCTORS
Dr. Pamela Elizabeth Blackstone
OAKE National Children’s Choir
Francisco J. Núñez
OAKE National Youth Treble Choir
Georgia Newlin
OAKE National Concert Treble Choir
Josephine Lee
OAKE National Chamber Choir
Dr. Pamela Elizabeth Blackstone
OAKE National Children’s Choir
Dr. Pamela Elizabeth Blackstone is a renowned and respected conductor, voice instructor, choreographer, and healer on the national and international levels, where her expertise and innovative approach to music, health, and life skills have empowered individuals of all ages to achieve their highest levels of excellence in musicianship, creative artistry, performance, and wellness.
For over three decades, Dr. Blackstone has devoted herself to the art of performance and music education with passion and her signature high-energy excellence. Currently, she serves in her 16th year as Associate Artistic Director and Chief Programming Officer of the GRAMMY® Award-winning National Children’s Chorus. Her concert appearances have included Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Royce Hall, and The Broad Stage, with international appearances in Austria, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Korea, Norway, Portugal, Scotland, Spain and Wales. Her recent musical collaborations include projects with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Grant Gershon and the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra, American Youth Symphony, VOCES8, Eric Whitacre, Sharon Farber, Sarah Quartel, Nico Muhly, Caroline Polachek, Ola Gjeilo, and Meredith Monk. As a college educator, Dr. Blackstone held the position of Director of Choral Activities and Vocal Studies at the University of Arkansas, Fort Smith, and emerged as one of the Midwest region’s most sought-after choral clinicians, judges, and choreographers. She also served as the Assistant Conductor of the Los Angeles-based Angeles Chorale, and has taught choral and vocal music at the University of California Los Angeles, Santa Ana College, and church organizations across the nation.
Dr. Blackstone obtained her Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance from the University of Kansas, a Master of Music degree in choral conducting from the University of Missouri–Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance, and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in choral conducting from the University of California Los Angeles. Combined with her expertise in the healing arts profession, Dr. Blackstone has advocated for an integrated, holistic approach to music education that embodies an eclectic array of modalities and methodologies, enriching her students mentally, emotionally, and kinesthetically. In addition, Dr. Blackstone’s awe-inspiring energy, revered as positively contagious, has established her as an invaluable vocal instructor and in-demand performance coach across the nation. Recent students have been accepted with scholarships at top-level programs including the University of Southern California, University of California Los Angeles, Manhattan School of Music, New York University, Mannes School of Music, Northwestern University, Boston Conservatory, Berklee, Oberlin, University of Michigan, Peabody Institute, Indiana University, Stanford and Harvard.
Francisco J. Núñez
OAKE National Youth Treble Choir
Francisco J. Núñez, a MacArthur Fellow and Musical America’s 2018 Educator of the Year, is a composer, conductor, visionary, leading figure in music education, and the artistic director/founder of the Young People’s Chorus of New York City, renowned worldwide for its diversity and artistic excellence. Since its founding in 1988, Mr. Núñez has created recognition among composers of the child’s voice as a significant instrument for making music. Mr. Núñez also leads the University Glee Club of New York City, its fifth conductor since the all-men’s chorus was established in 1894; the principal conductor of American Young Voices concerts of schoolchildren performing in some of the largest arenas in the Northeast; and is sought after nationwide as a guest conductor by professional orchestras and choirs and as a master teacher. In addition, through YPC National he is expanding the YPC model to children’s choruses beyond New York City and is a frequent keynote speaker as a leading authority on the role of music in achieving equality and diversity among children in today’s society. Mr. Núñez composes countless compositions and arrangements in all musical formats and styles for choirs, orchestras, and solo instruments and has received an ASCAP Victor Herbert Award, the New York Choral Society’s Choral Excellence Award, and the Visionary Award from Bang on a Can. ABC-TV honored him as its “Person of the Week,” and Musical America Worldwide named him among 30 “Influencers” for his contributions to the music industry. NYU Steinhardt has presented him with its Distinguished Alumnus Achievement Award, and he holds honorary Doctor of Music degrees from both Ithaca College and Gettysburg College.
Most recently, Mr. Núñez launched YPC National, in response to requests for guidance, training, and assistance from choruses across the country and the Caribbean inspired by the YPC model. This past summer YPC held its first YPC National Lab and Studio training sessions for chorus members, conductors, and teachers in Santo Domingo followed by a week-long residency at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee. The weeks’ events culminated in concerts featuring the debut of Concinamus, the combined ensemble of YPC National singers. A particular highlight of the Concinamus program was the world premiere of the first two compositions in the YPC National Works catalogue, commissioned from composers Bruce Adolphe and Jim Papoulis.
Georgia Newlin
OAKE National Concert Treble Choir
Georgia A Newlin, DMA is an independent Music Education Consultant. She has taught in early childhood and public school music positions for sixteen years and at the collegiate level for eighteen. She is a founder and Artistic Director of the Valley Treble Singers, a group of adult treble-makers in the Virginia Shenandoah Valley.
Currently, Georgia is called upon as a conductor for choral festivals and as a clinician for choral workshops, reading sessions, and intermediate grade methodology, as well as a consultant for curriculum planning. She teaches musicianship, conducting, and ensemble in Kodály programs at Indiana University, University of Hawai’i, and Southern Methodist University. At University of Saint Thomas she teaches a K-6 Choral Literature class.
Georgia is Past President of the Organization of American Kodály Educators and is a member of The VoiceCare Network. She has had articles published in the Choral Journal, Orff Echo, Kodály Envoy, and Southwestern Musician, among others. She served for three years on the Music Educators Journal Advisory Committee of the National Association for Music Education.
Music Is Elementary has recently published the Revised Edition of her book, One Accord: Developing Part-Singing Skills in School-Age Musicians, as well as her lesson plans for teaching music literacy through choral singing in The Crooked River Choral Project. Georgia is also published with the Ruth Dwyer Choral Series from Colla Voce. Georgia considers herself most fortunate in that, through her vocation, she has spent her life making music with others.
Josephine Lee
OAKE National Chamber Choir
Emmy-winning and Grammy-nominated conductor, pianist, singer, producer, social impact and non-profit leader Josephine Lee has made a widespread impact in the fields of music and education through an array of engagements across the globe. Ms. Lee has worked with a sterling roster of international artists and currently serves as President of Uniting Voices (formerly Chicago Children’s Choir), a nonprofit organization that empowers and unites 3000+ diverse youth annually to find their voice and celebrate their common humanity through the power of music.
Through her vision for Uniting Voices, Ms. Lee has doubled the number of students served, tripled the organization’s budget and established Uniting Voices Chicago as one of the city’s premier civic and cultural institutions, creating a performance-based learning experience built around innovative creative partnerships. Lee led Uniting Voices Chicago singers in performances with Colombian pop superstar Karol G on Saturday Night Live and at Lollapalooza (2023); with Peter CottonTale on the viral work Together in Google’s Year in Search video (2020) and on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert (2021); PBS Great Performances national broadcast of Bernstein’s Mass with Ravinia Festival (2020); with Bobby McFerrin & The SpiritYouAll Band at Ravinia Festival (2019); recording of Chance the Rapper’s debut studio album The Big Day (2019) and Grammy Award-winning Coloring Book; the world premiere of a hip hop version of Homer’s Odyssey Long Way Home (2018); the original world musical Sita Ram with Lookingglass Theatre (2003, 2006, 2012); and performances with Yo Yo Ma, Luciano Pavarotti, Solange, Al Green, Eddie Vedder, Wyclef Jean, Buddy Guy, the Eagles, Andrea Bocelli, and more. For over two decades, Ms. Lee has prepared Uniting Voices Chicago ensembles to serve as the youth ensemble for Lyric Opera of Chicago and Chicago Symphony Orchestra, among other cultural cornerstones.
Ms. Lee uses music as a tool for cultural diplomacy; Uniting Voices was the first non-Korean civilian group to be granted permission to enter the Yeolsei Observation Platform in the Korean Demilitarized Zone. In recognition of her leadership, Ms. Lee received the Kennedy Center’s National Committee for the Performing Arts Award for Arts Advocacy, the Roman Nomitch Fellowship to attend the Harvard Business School’s Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management program, the Jesse L. Rosenberger Medal from the University of Chicago, the 3Arts Artist Award from MacArthur Foundation, and other esteemed awards.
As an independent artist, Lee delivered a “sensuous and bluesy” performance (The New York Times) in Pulitzer Prize finalist Ted Hearne’s Place at its Brooklyn Academy of Music world premiere, as well as performances with the LA Philharmonic and Festival Musica in Strasbourg. As a composer, she was commissioned for a suite for piano and cello, Ascension, and a piece for piano, The Good Goodbyes. Ms. Lee has conducted the National Philharmonic at Strathmore with Grammy Award-winning artist Lisa Fischer and her band Grand Baton, Choral Arts and Orchestra at Kennedy Center, Chicago Sinfonietta, Oregon Symphony, Grant Park Orchestra, Sphinx Virtuosi, Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra, and Portland Youth Symphony Orchestra.