Dr. Valerie Jones-Frances serves at Nicholls State University as an associate professor, also Executive Artistic Director-Founder of Opera Programs and “A Celebration of the Negro Spiritual Concert Series,” Director, Nicholls State Gospel Choir, Appointed member of African American Program Committee, and Music Department Recruitment Initiative. She has also served as Professor of Music and Artist in Residence at Xavier University; she has performed at the National Baptist Convention and Rev. Jesse Jackson’s PUSH, in Chicago. She is director of the Patriotic Project, New Orleans, which includes young people of all races in and around the State of Louisiana, singing patriotic songs and songs with other themes. She has performed solo repertoire arranged/composed by Ellis Marsalis, Roger Dickerson, Dan Shore, and Stanley Friedman.