A native of Morristown, Tennessee, Emmanuel Joshua Stokes began his musical study singing in church choirs—serving as a junior choir conductor at the age of nine.

Emmanuel is a 2008 alumnus of Berea College, his teachers include Berea’s own Dr. Kathy Bullock (piano) and Dr. Ann Rhodes (voice).  He completed his master’s degree in Musicology from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) in 2013 under the tutelage of Dr. Leslie Clay Gay, Jr., Dr. Rachel Golden, and Dr. Marvelene Moore (professor emerita).  While at Tennessee, he was the 2010-2011 President for the UTK School of Music Advisory Council and served as the Coordinator of Exhibitions for the 8^th and 9^th Biennial Symposiums on Multicultural Music, sponsored by the National Association for Music Education and UTK.  He is a doctoral candidate (ABD) at The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), studying under the guidance of Dr. Gabriel Solis.  While attending Illinois, Emmanuel served on the School of Music Student Advisory Board.

Among his accolades and distinctions, Emmanuel was consistently recognized in UIUC’s “List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent.”  In 2015, he received the UIUC Excellence Award for Academics and Good Citizenship” and in 2018, received the Sarah Catherine Goins Award for Excellence in Education.  Emmanuel is also a member of the Pi Kappa Lambda and Phi Kappa Phi Honors Societies.

As a continuing performer, Emmanuel regularly travels as a recitalist, choral conductor, and adjudicator.  His most recent concert was entitled Soundtrack: The Songs of My Story, a personal narrative recital.  He also served as the Music Director for the Berea College Theatre’s 2017-18 season production of American Idiot.   In the summer of 2016, Emmanuel served as the Gospel Artist in Residence for Vocal Week at the Augusta Heritage Center, hosted by Davis and Elkins College in West Virginia.

Affectionately known as “Professor E.J.”, Emmanuel serves as the Assistant Professor of Music History and Literature at Berea College.   Additionally, he directs the award-winning Berea College Black Music Ensemble, a sixty voice choir dedicated to the performance and preservation of African American gospel and sacred music traditions.  Emmanuel also teaches courses in Musical Theatre, Music & Wellbeing, and General Studies.