JD Steele, is the director of the MacPhail Community Youth Choir (MCYC) and teaches in the Partnership Program at MacPhail.  Along with his siblings who compromise the Twin Cities dynamic vocal group, The Steeles, J.D. has garnered every major music award and accolade the state has to offer. He and his family began touring the international hit show “Gospel at Colonus” with Morgan Freeman around the world before landing on Broadway in 1988. He has also produced, performed and recorded seven Steele’s albums, and has gone on to write, produce and perform and record with Prince, Donald Fagen, George Clinton, Mavis Staples, Kim Carnes, The Sounds of Blackness and many other artist.

J.D. has also developed a choral group of 200 street kids at an orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya, called Shangilia. Since, they have performed in Nairobi, Europe and the United States. They were featured at the 2010 Flint Hills International Children’s Festival in St. Paul performing with MCYC.*

*Information from the McPhail Center for the Arts Website