Joel Chapman (he/him) is a New York City-based songwriter, bass-baritone, and conductor. With backgrounds in choral music, accessibility advocacy, musical theater, and comedy, Joel brings fresh spins and improbable ideas to the forefront of his art and leadership.

Joel writes music, even though he once wrote a song called “I Don’t Write Music.” His musical Press Delete was recently seen in the 2025 Soundbites Festival, and his other works have been produced in developmental readings around New York City, as well in performances at The Town Hall, Joe’s Pub, Green Room 42, and the Marjorie S Deane Little Theater. For his music and work as a disability advocate, he was a 2025 Danny Award winner.

Commissions as a composer include a live-streamed audiovisual creation for remote singers called Interdependence (Volti), an electric and earthy score for a 20-minute dance in the premiere of Charles Mee’s Utopia (RAWDance, Cutting Ball), and three art songs for The Young Activists’ Songbook. He is a composer in the BMI Advanced Musical Theatre Writing Workshop.

Though he loves certain pre-existing works that have stood the test of time, Joel’s true passion is in new works development: he sang with the acclaimed new-music ensemble Volti for 11 years, and he is co-creator of Gravity, a New(tonian) Musical – 2025 NAMT Finalist, 2025 Lucille Lortel Finalist, 2017 O’Neill National Music Theater Conference finalist. Joel sings professionally with the Choir of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian in NYC and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra in SF, with whom he is a frequent soloist.

Joel is a graduate of Stanford University, where he received his B.A. in Music with honors with focus in vocal performance and conducting. Joel studied with Gregory Wait, Laura Dahl, and Stephen Sano. Joel later received his M.A. in Music, Science, and Technology from Stanford at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), where he studied digital signal processing, recording technologies, and specialized in sound design. 

Recent credits as an actor: SqueakyFest ’26, 504 The Musical (Joe’s Pub), Press Delete (Soundbites Festival), The White Rose (developmental workshop, actor and music director, Los Angeles), Path of Miracles (singer, ODC Dance), At War with Ourselves (chorus, Kronos Quartet), A Grand Night for Singing (actor, 42nd Street Moon), A Christmas Carol (music director, American Conservatory Theater).

As an educator, he teaches voice and songwriting privately and has been on faculty at esteemed institutions like San Francisco University High School, the Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir, and the Sitka Fine Arts Camp. Joel was the music director for the Unitarian Universalists of San Mateo for 7 years.

Joel is an avid Go player, enjoys cats and dogs equally, and loves public transit.