Deeply committed to high-level music-making and the education of young musicians, Nate Widelitz has traveled to three continents so far as a singer, conductor, scholar, and teacher. He has performed at New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Los Angeles’ Disney Hall and Hollywood Bowl, Singapore’s Esplanade, Osaka’s Izumi Hall, and Barcelona’s Palau de la Música under the batons of Zubin Mehta, Franz Welser-Möst, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Gustavo Dudamel, Sir Bramwell Tovey, Nicholas McGegan, and Masaaki Suzuki, and Helmuth Rilling. He has collaborated with Bach Collegium Japan, the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestras, and the Cleveland Orchestra and solo artists such as Emanuel Ax, Kelley O’Connor, Rod Gilfry, Alan Held, Charles Castronovo, and Ingrid Michaelson. He has conducted choirs in Salzburg Cathedral, participated in masterclasses with Max van Egmond, David Hayes, and Erwin Ortner, prepared choruses for Helmuth Rilling, Carl St. Clair, and Sir Gilbert Levine, earned numerous television and film credits, and taught music all over the United States.
Nate earned his BM in Vocal Arts from USC’s Thornton School of Music and his MM in Choral Conducting from the Yale School of Music, where he studied with Marguerite Brooks, Jeffrey Douma, David Hill, and Masaaki Suzuki. He also spent a year as a Fulbright Scholar in Sofia, Bulgaria, researching the women’s dvuglas music of the Shopski Kray region. He has since taught music at every level from fourth grade through college and gained recognition as an oratorio singer, with professional credits as a soloist in New York, San Francisco, Hartford, and Los Angeles.
Between 2017 and 2021, Nate was appointed Assistant Conductor of Pacific Chorale and a choral director at Mt. San Antonio College and Los Angeles Valley College. He also made several notable debuts: as a soloist at Disney Hall (as a member of the Los Angeles Master Chorale), as the conductor of an all-professional ensemble (as guest director of the Horizon Chamber Choir), and on the Deutsche Grammophon label (on the LA Phil’s recording of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, which won a Grammy Award). In the Fall of 2020, he returned to Yale to begin his pursuit of the DMA degree in Choral Conducting and was subsequently appointed Assistant Conductor of Yale’s storied Glee Club.
Upon completing his coursework, Nate was appointed Visiting Instructor of Choral Music Education at Millikin University in 2022, and was promoted to Associate Director of Choral Activities in 2024. In 2023, Nate founded the Five Cities Baroque Foundation & Festival, which serves the communities outside the major urban centers of the Midwest with accessible, world-class performances of 17th- and 18th-century music and educational events.
