Nollie Moore

tenor

Nollie Moore, Assistant Professor of Music, is director of the Columbia College Music Program in the Department of Visual Arts and Music and has been director of the Jane Froman Singers since 1999. He holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music education from the University of Missouri. Concert tours have taken members to New York City’s Carnegie Hall; the great cathedrals of Scotland, England, Austria, Ireland, Italy; and concert halls in China. Away from campus, Moore is active as a professional tenor singing regularly with the Missouri Symphony Orchestra, for which he has sung leading roles in Die Fledermaus, La Traviata, Madama Butterfly and Carmen. He can be seen regularly on the stage of The Lyceum Theater in Arrow Rock, Missouri. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2015 as the featured soloist in A High Lonesome Bluegrass Mass by Tim Sharp and sang the same work at the iconic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee in April 2016. Nollie is an active member of NATS, ACDA, and NAfME and has presents regularly at regional and national conferences. Most recently he presented a session on Non-traditional Vocal Techniques in the Choral Setting at the Shenzhen Choral Festival in China. He will present the same session at the Havana Choral Festival in Cuba in June 2020. 

Jared Smith

tenor

Jared Smith teaches K-5 general music at Alpha Hart Lewis Elementary School in Columbia, MO. He also serves as the assistant choir director at Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Jared received his Masters and Bachelors degree from the University of Missouri in Music Education. Outside of Vox Nova, Jared plays bass trombone in the Columbia Jazz Orchestra and the Missouri Symphony Orchestra as well as teaching private low brass, bass, and guitar lessons. He can be seen performing around Columbia and around Missouri in local band Saint Gnome, as well as other local ensembles throughout the Mid-Missouri area.

 

Jonathan Ray

tenor

Jonathan Ray serves as Assistant Professor of Music at Central Methodist University, where he is director of opera and teaches applied voice, diction, and conducting, and is also music director for the musicals. Hailed for his "very rich, full tenor" (Broadway World), he has performed as a soloist with such companies as Utah Festival Opera & Musical Theatre, The American Festival Chorus, The Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Heartland Opera Theatre, The Missouri Symphony, Opera in the Rock, The Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra, St. Petersburg Opera, Music On Site, Lawrence Opera Theatre, and Opera Kansas. Some of Jonathan's operatic highlights include the principal tenor roles in Così fan tutte, Roméo et Juliette, La traviata, Die Fledermaus, Il barbiere di Siviglia, L’italiana in Algeri, La Cenerentola, Béatrice et Bénédict, Don Giovanni, The Abduction from the Seraglio, Albert Herring, Die Zauberflöte, Le nozze di Figaro, L’elisir d’amore, Gianni Schicchi, and Candide. Musical theater credits include roles in She Loves Me, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Into the Woods, Amazing Grace, Hairspray, Sweeney Todd, Assassins, You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown, South Pacific, and A Little Night Music. Concert work includes the tenor solos in Rossini's Petite messe solennelle, Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass, Orff's Carmina Burana, Stravinsky’s Cantata, Bach BWV 78, 148, & 211, and Mozart’s Requiem in D minor and Great Mass in C minor. He received the Doctorate of Musical Arts in Vocal Performance from Louisiana State University, the MM in Vocal Performance from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and the Bachelor of Music Education from Arkansas Tech University. Jonathan serves as music director for traditional worship at First Baptist Church in Columbia and is co-founding artistic director for Landlocked Opera, a non-profit opera company that he runs with his wife, Christina.

Jordan Walker

tenor

Jordan Blane Walker attended both Evangel University for his degree in Music Education and the University of Missouri where he worked on a M.M. in Choral Conducting with Dr. R. Paul Crabb. An active chorister and director, Jordan has performed with and directed numerous choral ensembles in the Columbia area, including Vox Nova, the church choir of First Presbyterian Church of Columbia, University Singers, and the Primo Choir and Columbia Kids Gospel Choir with Choral Arts Alliance of Missouri (CAAM). Jordan is currently an elementary music specialist at Mill Creek Elementary School (Columbia Public Schools) and looks forward to fostering a culture of choral singing among younger singers, as well as nurturing a mindset of critical thinking, empathy, self-dependency, competence, and self-efficacy with his students.

Neal D. Long

tenor

Neal D. Long enjoys a diverse career as a singer, pianist, and educator. As a tenor, Neal has been described as “totally at ease” and providing a “sonorous tenor” (KC Arts Beat). His roles performed include Nemorino, Pedrillo, Ferrando, Bénédict, Candide, Lysander, and Laurie. A new music enthusiast, Neal has premiered works by several composers. He sang the Voice of the Architect in Forrest Pierce's Resonant Vessels and The Burning Harp, an epic song-cycle. As co-founder and executive director of The Meadowlark Project, a vocal ensemble dedicated to contemporary works, Neal toured the Midwest with their recital program entitled “Sounds of the Plains.” Neal holds a BM in Piano from the University of Nevada, Reno; a MM in Voice from the University of Kansas; and is currently pursuing a DMA in Voice also from the University of Kansas.