Independent Arts News Reporting Trenton Ensemble Wins The American Prize in Choral Performance – Professional Division, for the Second Time
Reported on Friday, January 23, 2025.
Pictured Above: Moses Possible. Photo Credit: Contributed.
NEWSROOM POST: TRENTON, NEW JERSEY
The honor affirms LOTUS’s place among the country’s leading professional choral organizations and celebrates a season defined by bold programming, artistic excellence, and deep community impact
Trenton, NJ —The LOTUS Project has been named a winner of the The American Prize in Choral Performance, Professional Division, marking the ensemble’s second national win in this highly competitive category. The honor affirms LOTUS’s place among the country’s leading professional choral organizations and celebrates a season defined by bold programming, artistic excellence, and deep community impact.
Founded with the ethos that world-class artistry belongs everywhere, LOTUS has grown from a single professional ensemble into LOTUS Performing Arts, a multifaceted organization that now includes a professional choir, community chorale, festival orchestra, and artist-in-residence initiatives. Rooted in Trenton and active across the region, LOTUS champions fair pay for artists, accessible performances, and repertoire that is luminous, human, and urgently of our time. Last spring, LOTUS Performing Arts launched “Remembrance & Resilience,” its first summer music and art festival in downtown Trenton.
About The American Prize
The American Prize is one of the nation’s most comprehensive performing arts awards programs, recognizing excellence in performance, composition, and programming at the professional, collegiate, community, and youth levels. Adjudicated by panels of national experts, the competition celebrates artistic achievement and the vitality of the performing arts across the United States.
A second American Prize win signals more than repeat excellence. It reflects the momentum of an organization that has steadily expanded its artistic scope while remaining grounded in its mission: to bring bold music to unconventional spaces, elevate historically marginalized voices, and invest in artists and audiences alike. For Trenton, it is a national spotlight on a homegrown organization proving that transformative art is being made here – by and for the community.
Looking Ahead: Stones to Sky
LOTUS Performing Arts continues its award-winning season on January 31, 2026 with Stones to Sky, a visionary program tracing humanity’s enduring reach – from the architectural wonder of Renaissance cathedrals to the imagination of flight and the outer edges of the cosmos. Featuring works by Guillaume Dufay, Eric Whitacre, Veljo Tormis, Marie-Claire Saindon, and more, the concert invites audiences into a sonic journey of curiosity, faith, invention, and wonder – through voices alone.
Pictured Above: Lotus 6.15.25. Photo Credit: Contributed.
Artist Voice
Moses Possible, Trenton native, board member, and professional baritone with The LOTUS Project, reflects on the significance of the win and the work ahead:
“As a Trenton native, I couldn’t be more excited about an organization like the LOTUS Project. I truly believe that the ethos of its mission is so important to the future of arts in our city.
Growing up, I wasn’t exposed to much classical music. There was little that I knew about choral music specifically. In fact, I always believed that I had to leave my city to experience this music—along with orchestral scores, suites, and requiems.
However, thanks to my LOTUS advisors and mentors who then became friends and colleagues, I was exposed to the beauty of the genre and the art of collaboration. It fills me with pride to see a two-time American Prize-winning group based in my hometown make such amazing art, and I feel especially honored to be a part of this group.
I am quite eager to present the repertoire we have prepared for our upcoming engagement. Through this music, I hope we can show the citizens of Trenton that luscious melodies can be found right here in our own backyard—and inspire other aspiring musicians of Central Jersey to reach for the sky.”
As LOTUS Performing Arts enters its next chapter, this national recognition underscores a simple truth at the heart of the organization’s work: when artists are valued and communities are invited in, something lasting takes root.
About LOTUS Performing Arts
LOTUS Performing Arts is a Trenton-based nonprofit dedicated to creating immersive musical experiences that promote transformation and connection through the arts. Through professional and community ensembles, visionary programming, and equitable artist compensation, LOTUS brings bold, excellent music to audiences across New Jersey and beyond. Learn more at www.thelotusprojectnj.org
