Nicole Snodgrass
New Jersey Music Educators Association – Master Music Teacher
Nicole Snodgrass has been the choral director at Cherokee High School in Marlton, New Jersey for the past twenty-one years and is in her twenty-fifth year of teaching vocal music. During her time at Cherokee High School, Ms. Snodgrass’ choirs are perennially featured musical guests at The White House in Washington, DC and Carnegie Hall in Manhattan, have appeared live in concert with the rock band Foreigner at the Camden BB&T Pavilion, have performed for the stadium fans of the Harlem Globetrotters, the Philadelphia Phillies, the Philadelphia Phantoms, as well as guest appearances at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Grounds for Sculpture. Ms. Snodgrass’ choirs have toured England, Ireland, San Francisco, New York City, Boston, and Charleston, South Carolina, and recorded several albums of their tour presentations. Her Concert Choir was invited to perform at the 2019 Louisiana ACDA conference in New Orleans. Her 2009 Girls Traveling Choir won the B101 Christmas Idol Radio Contest and received a $7,500 piano from Cunningham Piano Company. Many of her students have gone on to make their living in the field of music.
Ms. Snodgrass is honored to be the Conductor of the 2020 New Jersey All-State Treble Chorus as well as being the recipient of the 2020 NJMEA New Jersey Master Music Teacher Award. Other recent accolades include Cherokee High School Teacher of the Year (2018), quarterfinalist for the Grammy Music Educator Award (2016 & 2017), conductor of the South Jersey Senior High Chorus (2015) and in 2014, she was chosen as one of Suburban Family Magazine’s “Outstanding Teachers.”
Using her own gifts in mentoring students and other teachers, Ms. Snodgrass has hosted and collaborated with world-class musicians to offer her students master classes with Grammy award winning singer Paul Phoenix, British a cappella vocal ensemble The King’s Singers, composers Ola Gjeilo and David Conte, and acclaimed choral directors Dr. Rollo Dilworth, Dr. Amanda Quist, Tom Shelton, Dr. Chris Thomas, and Gabriel Crouch. She commissioned British composer Michael Neaum to write a choral work which her choir premiered at Longwood Gardens as part of their 100th anniversary celebration.
Educated at West Chester University, she studied choral conducting with Grammy award-winning conductor Donald Nally. She has also received extensive training at Westminster Choir College where she studied choral conducting with Dr. Joe Miller, vocal technique and rehearsal techniques with Dr. James Jordan, voice pedagogy with Dr. Kathy Price, and she recently earned her Level I KodЗly Certification. Ms. Snodgrass has sung professionally for more than twenty-five years. In addition to starring in multiple community theater productions, she has appeared as a guest soloist with the Ocean City Pops Orchestra, Brandywine Valley Chorale, and has performed choral works with the Pennsylvania Ballet and Delaware Symphony Orchestra. She has been the soprano soloist at Historic Old Pine Street Church in Philadelphia since 1996.