Neeta Helms has been awarded the J. Reilly Lewis Award for Outstanding Contributions to Choral Music.

Helms’ innovation and unwavering commitment to fostering global collaborations for classical music ensembles made her the perfect candidate for the J. Reilly Lewis Award.

Throughout her career, Helms has been a trailblazer for both choral and classical music. She is the founder of Prague Summer Nights, and the founder and president of Classical Movements. For the past 30 years, Helms has orchestrated cultural experiences through music and cultural exchange spanning 147 countries, with over 200 concert performances and festivals each year. During her extraordinary leadership at Classical Movements, Helms has spearheading worldwide tours, choral festivals, cultural exchanges, and the diversification of the classical music scene. Under her guidance, Classical Movements’ Eric Daniel Helms New Music Program has commissioned 106 new works by 101 composers, with 61 international composers represented. Notably, 78 of these composers hail from diverse backgrounds, and 75 of the works were specifically composed for choral performance.

Former recipients of this award include Joan Gregoryk, Tom Hall, Pamela Lassell, the late J. Reilly Lewis, Mark Ohnmacht, Norman Scribner, Robert Shafer, Stanley J. Thurston, and others.