(Princeton, New Jersey) Princeton Pro Musica’s board of trustees is delighted to announce the appointment of Kenny Litvack as its new executive director. Kenny is the first full-time executive director in the organization’s 48-year history.

Kenny has been an active and committed member of PPM for more than twenty years and is a past board member and past president. As Princeton Pro Musica’s marketing manager since 2021, Kenny has led the growth of PPM audience engagement, social media presence, and brand cohesion.

“Having the opportunity to expand the executive director role to a full-time position, we conducted a thorough search to find just the right person to fill this new role,” said Erica Appel, Princeton Pro Musica’s board president. “We chose Kenny because he has a vision for the future of PPM, a collaborative leadership style, and a deep understanding of the important role of choral music in our community.”

Following the 15-year tenure of now-retired executive director Mary Trigg, Kenny acknowledges the significant contributions made by his predecessor and is dedicated to continuing her good work. “I recognize that following in Mary’s footsteps is no small task. What Mary accomplished as executive director is remarkable and won’t soon be forgotten. PPM came through the pandemic as a strong and robust organization due in large part to her fastidious stewardship and financial management. I’m thankful to have worked so closely with her over the past decade and to have learned so much from her examples of leadership.”

For Kenny, taking on this leadership role is personal. “I grew up in Mercer County, I’ve sung with PPM for more than two decades, I’ve led its board, and I’ve served as its first-ever marketing manager. I feel a great sense of investment in our mission and our path forward. I’m well positioned to lead us into our 50th anniversary season and beyond,” he said.

Motivated by a love of choral music and a particular fondness for the sense of ensemble it engenders, Kenny acknowledges the team involved in bringing him on board, and those who will help carry out the organization’s work. “I’m deeply grateful to [artistic director] Ryan Brandau, the search committee, and the board of trustees for entrusting me with the leadership of Princeton Pro Musica. I look forward to working closely with them and our wonderful team of dedicated volunteers as we honor PPM’s rich history and look boldly toward its inspiring future.”

In addition to his various roles within the PPM organization, Kenny spent nearly a decade as the chorus management specialist for Chorus Connection, a leading chorus management software platform. His work in the nonprofit sector began as a grant writer for a Princeton-based educational nonprofit in 2011.

As the premiere symphonic chorus in the central New Jersey region, Princeton Pro Musica comprises more than 100 of the area’s most skilled amateur choral musicians, a small core of professional choral singers, and contracted professional orchestras that join the chorus for three of their four annual subscription concerts. A 35-voice chamber chorus performs outreach concerts to area retirement communities and civic organizations throughout the year. Princeton Pro Musica performs under the leadership of artistic director Ryan James Brandau.

“I’ve had the pleasure of working side-by-side with Kenny for the past fourteen seasons in his roles as professional singer, board president, and marketing manager,” said Ryan James Brandau, artistic director of Princeton Pro Musica. “In every capacity, he has inspired in word and deed, guided with grace and care, and led with strength and humility. His passion for what Princeton Pro Musica has done and his vision for what Princeton Pro Musica can do put wind in the sails of our organization. I’m excited and honored to have him take the helm as we chart the course for our next decades together.”

 

PRINCETON PRO MUSICA’S 2026-2027 SEASON

Princeton Pro Musica’s season will open on October 25 with BACHTOBERFEST 2026, after the enthusiastic reception of last year’s all-Bach program. This year’s iteration will include highlights from the towering B Minor Mass and will again feature a Baroque orchestra of period instruments. On December 20, the celebratory A FEAST OF CAROLS will return, bringing sumptuously-arranged music of the season for chorus and orchestra. On March 13, we will offer BY POPULAR DEMAND: Picked by You, Sung by Us, one of the chorus’s most innovative programs yet. In the coming weeks, patrons will vote on a program that will no doubt become the ultimate choral playlist! The season will close on May 16 with IMMORTAL FIRE: 200 Years of Beethoven, which will honor 200 years since the death of one of Western music’s most influential voices. The concert will pair Beethoven’s Mass in C with A Silence Haunts Me, a 2019 piece by Jake Runestad, which sets a dramatized version of a letter Beethoven wrote to his brother about his profound struggle with increasing deafness. This companion piece explores the turbulent emotional world of one of history’s most celebrated composers—the capstone of a season not to be missed!

 

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ABOUT KENNY LITVACK

Kenny Litvack blends a profound personal dedication to choral music with an extensive career in nonprofit leadership and arts management. While Kenny brings a wealth of strategic, fundraising, and operational expertise drawn from the wider nonprofit sector, his career has heavily focused on the unique nuances of choral organization management, audience development, and board governance.

A recognized voice in the national choral management community, Kenny is deeply engaged with industry best practices. He has twice completed the Chorus Management Institute coursework presented by Chorus America. Additionally, he has contributed as a writer to major industry platforms, including Chorus America and Chorus Connection. Demonstrating his leadership during a critical time for the performing arts, he moderated a panel on pandemic-era board governance at Chorus America’s 2020 national virtual conference, providing tactical advice and context for choruses navigating unprecedented global challenges.

Kenny’s appointment as executive director represents the culmination of a twenty-one-year relationship with Princeton Pro Musica. He joined PPM in 2005 as a member of its professional core of singers and has occasionally conducted the chamber chorus in community appearances. Transitioning into administrative leadership, Kenny served a six-year term on the PPM board of trustees, eventually serving as vice president and then president. During his board tenure, he was instrumental in leading the organization through comprehensive strategic planning, chairing the development committee, guiding multichannel marketing activities, and overseeing staff. Most recently, he served as PPM’s marketing manager, where he elevated the ensemble’s visibility and community footprint.

Kenny studied vocal music education at James Madison University. He and his husband, Kevin, live in Mount Laurel, NJ.

ABOUT RYAN JAMES BRANDAU

Ryan James Brandau is a conductor and arranger based in New York City. Among audiences, he is best known for dynamic and uplifting choral and orchestral performances, whether he himself is at the podium or his arrangements are on the program. The New York Times hailed his recent debut appearance at Trinity Church Wall Street, conducting its iconic annual Messiah, “the gold standard” against which others “paled in comparison.” For both expert and new listeners, his interpretations are at once resplendent with the past and resonant with the present, earning the Times’ praise as “urgent and eloquent,” “burning and gladdening,” “intimate, alternately sober and joyous,” and, most essential to Ryan’s pervasive artistic intent, “modest yet monumental.” His repertoire spans the Renaissance and Baroque, contemporary music, and the full gamut of large-scale choral-orchestral masterworks.

Among musicians, he is perhaps better known for a clarity of vision and mastery of craft that is uncommonly equaled by a commitment to collaboration with vocalists and instrumentalists — a potent alchemy that not only produces music of the highest level, but invites participation in his music-made joy. 

In New York City, he is the founder and Director of Res Facta, a vocal ensemble bringing together 16 of the country’s finest professional vocalists “of the most impactful and even thrilling sounds,” and the longtime Artistic Director of Amor Artis, a chamber choir and Baroque orchestra, which specializes in bridging the Renaissance and Baroque to the present day. He is also the Artistic Director of the symphonic chorus and orchestra, Princeton Pro Musica — winner of the 2021 American Price for choral performance. For 14 seasons he directed Monmouth Civic Chorus. In addition to leading his own ensembles, he is a conductor for the Philadelphia Symphonic Choir. In 2026, he will prepare PSC for performances of Handel’s Messiah with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Bernard Labadie. He has prepared choruses for the Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, and New Jersey Symphony, for conductors including Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Daniel Barenboim, Sir Simon Rattle, and others. His June 2022 preparation for the Philadelphia Orchestra’s performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, sung by fewer than 70 choristers, through masks, was hailed by the Philadelphia Enquirer as “quite strong . . . unified—yet finely colored.”

As a choral and orchestral arranger, Ryan is equal parts artistic innovator and technical practitioner, taking pride in works that are as rewarding for musicians as they are for audiences. His expansive holiday repertoire in particular is lauded as “inventive,” “unfailingly gratifying,” and “in a class by itself” by the directors, vocalists, and instrumentalists of the many volunteer to professional ensembles that showcase their best through his well-crafted arrangements and meticulous orchestrations.

He is committed to collaboration with emerging artists and educational organizations, cross-cultural exploration, and building bridges for new audiences by presenting classical works in dialogue with contemporary themes and new music. Recent seasons’ highlights have included presenting Handel’s Solomon with New York Baroque, Inc.; Bach’s St. John Passion with La Fiocco; a presentation of Jasmine Barnes’ Portraits: Douglass and Tubman alongside Mozart’s Requiem; creating a multimedia presentation of Carmina Burana with the Roxey Ballet; and featuring on subscription concerts the singing of the Princeton Girlchoir, the Trenton Children’s Chorus, the New Jersey Youth Chorus, and top high school choral ensembles. He is the treasurer and a board member of the New York Choral Consortium in New York City. He has also participated in New Jersey Choral Consortium events, most recently serving on a panel presenting “the non-idiomatic music of Black composers.”

A lover and scholar of music, he is also a prolific writer and presenter on music, creating dozens of hour-long radio shows as a host of Sounds Choral on WWFM, writing in-depth program notes and essays for his own and other ensembles, and curating and presenting lecture series and special educational events. His insightful, engaging essays on choral-orchestral music and its role in our world are collected in his newsletter, The Living Voice.

Ryan has taught and conducted at Westminster Choir College, Santa Clara University, and Smith College. He was the choirmaster of the acclaimed all-professional choir at Christ Church, New Haven, and has been invited to guest conduct at Trinity Church Wall Street, and the Bach Vespers series at Holy Trinity Lutheran, both in New York City. He received the Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Musical Arts degrees from the Yale School of Music, where he was awarded the Dean Horatio Parker Prize. Prior to pursuing graduate study in conducting, he was selected as a Gates Scholar to attend the University of Cambridge in the UK, earning an MPhil in historical musicology. He received his B.A. in music, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Princeton University.

He lives in New York City with his husband, Ian, and his dog, Tux.

ABOUT PRINCETON PRO MUSICA

Princeton Pro Musica is a 100-voice auditioned symphonic chorus, the only such organization in the central New Jersey region.

Always pursuing the highest standards of musical performance, PPM performs the full array of the choral-orchestral repertoire, from familiar foundational works to intellectually and musically groundbreaking works intended to capture the stories of our time. A fully professional contracted orchestra of the region’s finest players provide the instrumental underpinning that set PPM performances apart from other community organizations in the area.

Princeton Pro Musica’s depth of programming and quality of performance are more commonly found in larger metropolitan areas like New York and Philadelphia. It is Princeton Pro Musica’s goal to make these same experiences available locally. The mission of the organization is to perform works of the choral literature with energy, passion, and uncompromising artistic excellence. Princeton Pro Musica believe in the power of choral music to uplift and transform audiences, performers, and community.