Blockbuster Broadway with Norm Lewis

Steven Reineke has established himself as one of North America’s leading conductors of popular music. In addition to his role as Principal POPS Conductor of the Houston Symphony, this season, he celebrates his 10^th anniversary as music director of The New York Pops at Carnegie Hall. Additionally, he is principal pops conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

Steven is a frequent guest conductor with The Philadelphia Orchestra and his extensive North American conducting appearances include Atlanta, Cincinnati, Edmonton, San Francisco, and Sarasota.

On stage, he has created programs and collaborated with a range of leading artists from the worlds of hip hop, Broadway, television, and rock, including Common, Kendrick Lamar, Nas, Sutton Foster, Megan Hilty, Cheyenne Jackson, Wayne Brady, Peter Frampton, and Ben Folds, among others. In 2017, he was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered leading the National Symphony Orchestra, in a first for the show’s 45-year history, performing live music excerpts between news segments. In 2018, Steven led the same orchestra and hip hop legend Nas performing his seminal album, Illmatic, on PBS’s Great Performances.

As the creator of more than 100 orchestral arrangements for the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, Steven’s work has been performed worldwide, and can be heard on numerous Cincinnati Pops Orchestra recordings on the Telarc label. His symphonic works Celebration Fanfare, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Casey at the Bat are performed frequently in North America, including performances by the New York Philharmonic and Los Angeles Philharmonic. His Sun Valley Festival Fanfare commemorated the Sun Valley Summer Symphony’s pavilion, and his Festival Te Deum and Swan’s Island Sojourn were debuted by the Cincinnati Symphony and Cincinnati Pops Orchestras. His numerous wind ensemble compositions are published by the C.L. Barnhouse Company and are performed by concert bands worldwide.

A native of Ohio, Steven is a graduate of Miami University of Ohio, where he earned Bachelor of Music degrees with honors in both trumpet performance and music composition. He lives in New York City with his husband, Eric Gabbard.

Emmy, Grammy, Tony, and SAG Award nominee, Norm Lewis, currently can be seen onstage starring in the national tour of the Tony Award-winning production of A Soldier’s Play. He recently starred in Spike Lee’s critically acclaimed, Da 5 Bloods, and in the groundbreaking FX series, Pose. Additionally, he stars in ABC’s newest series, Women of The Movement; and offscreen, he is heard in the latest season of Apple TV’s animated series, Central Park. He played Caiaphas in the award-winning NBC television special, Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert!, alongside John Legend, Sara Bareilles, and Alice Cooper.  

Norm returned to Broadway in 2021, starring in Chicken and Biscuits at the Circle in The Square Theatre. He previously appeared in the Broadway revival of Once on This Island and as Sweeney Todd in the Off-Broadway production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street at the Barrow Street Theatre, receiving the AUDELCO Award for his performance. In May 2014, he made history as The Phantom of the Opera’s first African American Phantom on Broadway. He received Tony, Drama Desk, Drama League, and Outer Critics Circle award nominations for his performance as Porgy in the Broadway production of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. In London’s West End he appeared as Javert in Les Misérables and Les Misérables: The 25th Anniversary Concert, which aired on PBS. 

He was seen on PBS in the Live From Lincoln Center productions of Showboat with Vanessa Williams, Norm Lewis: Who Am I?, New Year’s Eve: A Gershwin Celebration with Diane Reeves, as well as American Voices with Renée Fleming and the PBS Specials First You Dream–The Music of Kander & Ebb and Ella Wishes You A Swingin’ Christmas. His many TV and film credits include his recurring role as Senator Edison Davis on the hit drama, Scandal. 

Norm is a proud founding member of Black Theatre United, an organization that stands together to help protect Black people, Black talent, and Black lives of all shapes and orientations in theatre and communities across the country.