Steven Ward

A native of Washington, D.C., Steven A. Ward is an emerging composer of art songs and instrumental pieces, and arranger of American spirituals for solo voice and choir. He began his musical studies with the violin and piano before taking up singing starting in high school. Throughout college and over the next two decades he served several churches as a soloist and section leader in the Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Memphis, Tennessee areas. He started composing and arranging seriously with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. In 2022, he premiered his first piece, an arrangement of African American spiritual "Hammering," in Memphis, and later on that year one of his choral arrangements was selected as runner-up out of 32 new choral works by Black composers written for the Bent, But Not Broken conference. He has just completed his second choral commission for Augsburg University choirs in Minnesota, and will have a piece published through Gentry Publication’s Rock My Soul series celebrating soulful choral traditions. Steven earned his undergraduate degree in Agriculture from Virginia State University, his graduate degree in School Administration from Trinity Washington University, and is currently an elementary school principal in the Twin Cities area. He is a proud lifetime member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. and is an inaugural member of the Institute for Responsible Citizenship.