Meet our Featured Clinicians
Dr. Marcela Molina
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Dr. Marcela Molina has been leading the Tucson Girls Chorus (Arizona) since 2006, first serving as Artistic Director and taking the helm as Executive Director in 2011. Under Dr. Molina’s guidance, the Tucson Girls Chorus (TGC) has grown significantly in programming and community engagement. With her leadership, the TGC has transformed into a vibrant and collaborative organization that creates access to inclusive programming for youth and provides resources to music educators and support to their classroom all year-round. In addition to her work with the TGC, Dr. Molina is the Director of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra Chorus.
Dr. Molina was an honoree in Tucson’s 40 under 40 for her significant achievements and contributions in her profession and community and was one of the eight in the state of Arizona chosen as a Cox Hispanic Heritage Month. She was selected as a finalist for the Woman of Influence Awards in the category Arts and Culture Champion and under Molina’s leadership, the Tucson Girls Chorus was awarded the 2017 Copper Cactus award for Charitable Business sponsored by the Tucson Metro Chamber.
Born in Bogotá, Colombia, Dr. Molina holds degrees from Westminster Choir College and the University of Arizona. She has contributed articles to Antiphon, Teaching through Performance in Choir, Volume 2, and was a contributor for the book Choral Reflections: Insights from American Choral Conductor-Teachers. She was named 2019 Choral Director of the Year by AzACDA, and often serves as a clinician and guest conductor for choral festivals. Dr. Molina has served on the AzACDA board and standing committees for the ACDA Western Division. She currently serves on the board of Chorus America.
Dr. Jennaya Robison
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Dr. Jennaya Robison is the Artistic Director of the National Lutheran Choir (Minneapolis, MN) and an in-demand conductor, educator, and soprano. Known for her dynamic leadership and commitment to intergenerational and globally engaged choral artistry, she has conducted choirs, workshops, and festivals across the United States, Europe, and southern Africa. She is a frequent guest conductor for All-State and honor choirs and is highly sought after for her work in worship, education, and community-based choral initiatives.
From 2020 to 2023, Robison served as the Raymond R. Neevel/Missouri Associate Professor and Director of Choral Studies at the University of Missouri–Kansas City Conservatory. Prior to that, she was Associate Professor of Choral Music at Luther College. She holds a Master of Music in conducting and voice from the University of New Mexico and a Doctor of Musical Arts in choral conducting from the University of Arizona.
Robison is deeply committed to voice pedagogy within the choral ensemble, cultivating expressive singing and honoring the unique vocal potential of each singer. She is also an active composer and arranger, editing the National Lutheran Choir Series with MorningStar Music and the Jennaya Robison Series with Pavane Publishing. She serves as national chair for Music in Worship for the American Choral Directors Association.
Tim Takach
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Inspired by captivating narrative, speculative fiction and making humans better through art, the music of Timothy C. Takach is a mainstay in the concert world. Applauded for his melodic lines, thoughtful text choices and rich, intriguing harmonies, Takach has received commissions and performances from GRAMMY Award-winning ensembles Roomful of Teeth and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the St. Olaf Band, Lorelei Ensemble, True Concord Voices and Orchestra, and numerous other organizations. His compositions have been performed on A Prairie Home Companion, The Boston Pops holiday tour and at venues such as the Library of Congress, Kennedy Center and Royal Opera House Muscat. Takach is a co-creator of the theatrical production of All is Calm: the Christmas Truce of 1914, by Peter Rothstein, and won the 2024 Domenic J. Pellicciotti Opera Composition Prize for Computing Venus with librettist Caitlin Vincent.
Takach’s a cappella choral symphony Helios is “larger than life, as if the piece were accompanied by an orchestra” and is “complemented with brilliant visuals created by CandyStations” (Tucson.com). In 2023 the James Sewell Ballet premiered his ballet Unfashioned Creature in St. Paul, MN. Takach was a co-founder, singer and Artistic Co-Director of the vocal ensemble Cantus and has frequent national work as a composer-in-residence, clinician and lecturer. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife and two sons.
Dr. Lee Nelson
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Dr. Lee Nelson joined the Wartburg faculty in 2009 as the Patricia R. Zahn Chair in Choral Conducting and director of choral activities. He conducts the Wartburg Choir and Ritterchor and serves as the artistic director of Christmas with Wartburg.
Nelson completed a bachelor’s degree in music at Concordia College, Moorhead, Minn. He pursued graduate work at Westminster Choir College and earned his M.M. and D.M.A. degrees from the University of Arizona.
Nelson won the 2005 National American Choral Directors Association Conducting Competition in Los Angeles and received the 2001 Outstanding Young Choral Conductor of the Year award from the American Choral Directors Association of Minnesota. As a faculty member at St. Cloud State University, he received the 2008 Professional Achievement Award. He made his conducting debut at Carnegie Hall in May 2010.
Nelson directed the Wartburg Choir’s 2011 May Term performances in Hungary, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, which commemorated the 50th anniversary of the choir’s first tour of Europe. Most recently, Nelson and the choir have been invited to perform at the White House.
Jocelyn Hagen
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Jocelyn Hagen composes music that has been described as “simply magical” (Fanfare Magazine) and “dramatic and deeply moving” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis/St. Paul). She is a pioneer in the field of composition, pushing the expectations of musicians and audiences with large-scale multimedia works, electro-acoustic music, dance, opera, and publishing. Her first forays into composition were via songwriting, still very evident in her work. The majority of her compositions are for the voice: solo, chamber and choral. Her melodic music is rhythmically driven and texturally complex, rich in color and deeply heartfelt. In 2023 her opera The Song Poet, written with Hmong writer Kao Kalia Yang, premiered with Minnesota Opera, and sold out their run over six months prior to the premiere date. In 2019 she celebrated the premiere of her multimedia symphony The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, which includes video projections created by a team of visual artists, highlighting da Vinci’s spectacular drawings, inventions, and texts. The work has already been performed over fifty times across the United States, including Canada, Sweden, Croatia, and England. Hagen describes her process of composing for choir, orchestra and film simultaneously in a Tedx Talk given at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, now available on YouTube. Hagen’s commissions include Voces8, Conspirare, the Minnesota Opera, the Minnesota Orchestra, the International Federation of Choral Music, True Concord Voices and Orchestra, the American Choral Directors Associations of Minnesota, Georgia, Connecticut and Texas, the North Dakota Music Teachers Association, Cantus, the Boston Brass, the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and the St. Olaf Band, among many others. Her work is independently published through JH Music, as well as through Graphite Publishing, G. Schirmer, EC Schirmer, Fred Bock Music Publishing, Santa Barbara Music Publishing, and Boosey and Hawkes.
