Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka is Professor and the Director of Sacred Music at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park, California, where she holds the William P. Mahrt Chair in Sacred Music and serves as the founding Director of the Catholic Institute of Sacred Music.

She serves as the Vice President and Director of Publications for the Church Music Association of America (CMAA), and is the managing editor of the CMAA’s journal Sacred Music. She was a co-organizer of the Sacra Liturgia conferences in New York (2015) and San Francisco (2022) and, together with Archbishop Cordileone, is the founder of the Fons et Culmen Sacred Liturgy Summit. Donelson-Nowicka serves as a Consultant to the USCCB’s Committee on Divine Worship.

An innovative and pioneering educator, Donelson-Nowicka has developed an extensive program of graduate coursework and public-facing educational initiatives in sacred music through the Catholic Institute of Sacred Music (CISM), as well as for the seminarians at St. Patrick’s Seminary, following her work for eight years in the same role at St. Joseph’s Seminary (Dunwoodie) in New York.

Having presented hundreds of workshops on Gregorian chant across the United States and Europe, Donelson-Nowicka’s experience is grounded in her work as the director of a professional schola cantorum and organist at Mater Dolorosa Catholic church in South San Francisco. She has taught extensively for religious orders, including the Benedictine monks of San Benedetto in Monte (Norcia, Italy), has served as a choral conducting coach for graduate organ students in Yale University’s Institute of Sacred Music, and has taught chant to children for many years using the Ward Method. Dr. Donelson-Nowicka serves as the Director of the Archbishop’s Schola, a professional ensemble which sings for liturgies celebrated by His Excellency, Salvatore J. Cordileone. She hosts a podcast entitled “Square Notes: The Sacred Music Podcast,” now in its seventh season.

Acclaimed for his “deeply hued countertenor” (The New York Times), Dr. Williams is in demand as a singer, conductor, teacher, and early music specialist throughout the United States and abroad.

Dr. Williams hails from the Midwest and began his musical life as a treble in the American Boychoir. A devoted church musician, he has served the parishes of Emmanuel Memorial Episcopal Church in Champaign, Illinois; St. Mary the Virgin, Times Square; Trinity Church in Princeton; Washington National Cathedral; and was for a decade a Gentleman of the Choir of Men and Boys at Saint Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, in New York City.

He is founder and artistic director of the GRAMMY-nominated male classical vocal quartet New York Polyphony. Praised for a “rich, natural sound that’s larger and more complex than the sum of its parts,” (National Public Radio) New York Polyphony is one of the foremost vocal chamber ensembles active today. The four men, “singers of superb musicianship and vocal allure,” (The New Yorker) give vibrant, modern voice to repertoire ranging from Gregorian chant to cutting-edge compositions. Their dedication to innovative programming, as well as a focus on rare and rediscovered Renaissance and medieval works, has not only earned New York Polyphony two GRAMMY nominations and wide acclaim, but also helped to move early music into the classical mainstream.

Dr. Williams is married to Emilie, who teaches pre-K to eighth grade music at Adeline Montessori School in Summit, and they have two sons, Ellis Michael and Peter Grafton.