Damien Sneed

As a multi-genre recording artist and instrumentalist, Damien LeChateau Sneed is a pianist, vocalist, organist, composer, conductor, arranger, producer, and arts educator whose work spans multiple genres. He has worked with jazz, classical, pop, and R&B legends, including the late Aretha Franklin and Jessye Norman, Wynton Marsalis, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, Ashford & Simpson, Denyce Graves, Lawrence Brownlee, and many others. In addition, Sneed has served as music director for several Grammy Award–winning gospel artists, including The Clark Sisters, Richard Smallwood, Donnie McClurkin, Hezekiah Walker, Marvin Sapp, Karen Clark Sheard, Dorinda Clark-Cole, and Kim Burrell, among others, and BET’s hit gospel competition, Sunday Best. Sneed is a 2014 Sphinx Medal of Excellence recipient, a 2020 Dove Award winner, and a 2021 NAACP Image Award winner for his work as a featured producer and writer on the Clark Sisters’ project, The Return. Sneed recently joined the esteemed faculty of Howard University and the Juilliard School.

Sneed is featured in the award-winning PBS documentary Everyone Has a Place starring Wynton Marsalis, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and Sneed’s own Chorale Le Chateau, which captures Sneed’s journey as musical conductor of the historic tour performances of Marsalis’s Abyssinian Mass. As a conductor, he has debuted with several symphony orchestras, including the Springfield Symphony Orchestra, the Stockton Symphony Orchestra, the Gateways Music Festival Chamber Players, the Harlem Chamber Players Orchestra, and his own ensemble, Orchestra of Tomorrow.

His newest recording project, Kaleidoscope, featuring the solo piano music of African American composers, will be released in Spring 2024. www.DamienSneed.com www.LeChateauEarl.com www.DamienSneedFoundation.org