As the seventh-period bell rings, 30 restless Northglenn High School sophomores fill 27-year-old Brandon Warren’s classroom with their phone chimes, whispers of teenage gossip, abrasive spats of profanity and bursts of Gen Alpha slang. The space floods with mischievous laughter as wads of gum wrappers sail across the room and another Expo marker quietly disappears.
As his students leave his classroom, Warren prepares for the next period, which will be his fifth time teaching Integrated Math of the day. However, none of his students know about his life outside of school, where he will be playing the piano and conducting a 40-person a cappella choir come Sunday night.
“It’s sort of my double life,” Warren said.
His “double life” is also known as “Nexus A cappella,” a coed choir Warren founded in 2024 and now directs at The Arts Hub in Lafayette, where he spends Sunday nights leading rehearsals for their upcoming March concert. He directs, composes and arranges for the choir, filled with teachers, engineers, nurses and students — people who, like him, have full-time jobs, but can’t shake the need to make music.
Their spring performance will showcase new arrangements and Warren’s original compositions, all written in the few hours he has between grading papers and lesson planning.
“I gave up doing music as a career,” Warren said. “But I’d be miserable if I didn’t have an outlet like this.”
It’s a balance he’s been navigating for most of his life.
Warren grew up surrounded by music; you could even say it’s in his DNA. Both his parents were musicians. His mother, Tracy Warren, performed in shows on Broadway, landing major roles in the national tour of “Gypsy” and “Beauty and the Beast.”
“I first noticed Brandon’s ability with rhythms,” Tracy Warren said. “He could master any rhythm game, no matter the difficulty. He was way beyond what his peers could achieve, and set all kinds of international records online.”
By age 12, Warren was already experimenting with musical harmonies, using video games like Mario Paint to create some of his first attempts at arranging music. By high school, he wrote his first official arrangement, “Kiss from a Rose,” for his high school men’s choir.
“The first time I realized Brandon had completely passed me up as a musician was when he wrote a song for me for Christmas, probably around the age of 16,” Tracy Warren said. “He also recorded it and produced it. Three-part harmony. I was completely blown away.”
He went on to study jazz education at the University of Northern Colorado before eventually pivoting to complete a degree in math with a minor in computer science at the University of Colorado. Despite spending his days crunching numbers, he couldn’t stay away from music.
At CU, there is no shortage of a cappella groups. During his time there, Warren auditioned for nine ensembles. Despite his musical background and talent, he was rejected from all of them.
“I thought, OK, maybe it’s just not meant to be,” Warren said.
That was until Chris, Warren’s younger brother, introduced him to “On That Note A Cappella,” a band of misfit singers who, like Warren, were turned away from joining other established groups on campus.
“We sucked,” Warren said with a laugh. “It was more of a social adventure than anything, but the community was the cool part. Everyone was close.”
There, Warren found an escape from his daily math and computing classes. Within a year, Warren was presenting arrangements to the choir and, in his words, served as their “defective music director.”
“It became an outlet for me to write music, because before I had no one to perform it,” Warren said. “It was very actualizing.”
But when he graduated in 2022, Warren lost his group of singers, putting his writing and directing at a standstill.
“All of a sudden it was gone,” Warren said. “I didn’t have a reason to write anymore.”
Two years later, Warren contacted now 24-year-old Vikki Wong, a previous member of “On That Note,” to aid him in starting what would become Nexus.
“When I met Brandon in 2019, it was immediately evident to me that he had exceptional musical talent,” Wong said. “A talent like Brandon is really rare, and it’s even rarer for someone with said talent to use that to create community, and I wanted to be a part of that.”
The early days of Nexus were anything but polished. Rehearsals were held in Warren’s living room, and the group had no concert date to work toward. Six weeks into the process, his first attempt at Nexus, as well as his relationship, dissolved. Because he had lived with his partner at the time, the breakup meant losing the choir’s only rehearsal space, forcing Warren to return to square one.
“I was working a bunch of jobs that I hated, and I was in a relationship that was failing, so everything just fell apart,” Warren said, shaking his head.
After another year and a half, Warren returned to the idea of Nexus. Through his work of directing at The Arts Hub, he was able to negotiate a deal for a consistent and affordable rehearsal space and gathered a new group of committed musicians.
Despite his demanding day job, it was imperative to Warren that this attempt be fruitful. Like many musicians, he had been warned of the instability that comes with pursuing art full-time, but he was always searching for ways to keep it in his life.
“When I went to college, my goal was to convince myself it wasn’t feasible,” Warren said. “My parents both warned me about the reality of working in the industry. That kind of stability just doesn’t exist in the music world.”
With the help of his brother and Wong, Warren sent out announcements on multiple Facebook groups, texted dusty group chats and even posted a few Reddit threads about auditions. The turnout was a huge success.
Thus, the group was born. Filled with 40 members, such as 28-year-old Hana Leigh to 51-year-old William “Randy” Doriese. Sunday nights at The Arts Hub became a weekly ritual and a space where voices of all ages and backgrounds fused into harmony.
“I was a ‘Reddit Rando,’” alto Hana Leigh said, laughing. “I was looking for community at the time, and at the audition, I felt like it was a great group of people. Brandon was very welcoming.”
Leigh, who works in higher education, was one of the few members who stumbled upon Nexus through Reddit. Before joining the ensemble, music for her had been a constant, but community hadn’t.
“I am from New York, and I came to Colorado originally for my job, and I had no friends,” Leigh said. “Now 92% of my friends are from a cappella.”
Doriese, a tenor for the group, is a physicist, but was involved in a cappella back in 1992 during his college years.
“It’s wonderful to re-awaken this long-dormant part of my life,” Doriese said. “It helps keep me young when I get to be around so many bright and energetic young adults on a weekly basis.”
According to Warren, the name “Nexus” captures the choir’s essence: Bringing people together and linking them through the passion they share: making music.
“The goal was to create it as a community first, and as an outlet, not second—but of equal importance,” Warren said. “While these people who have vastly different lives by day come together and unite to make this thing in the night. And, you know, that’s also part of the reason the group is so big, because I wanted it to be a community.”
Not only does the choir cultivate community, but it also enhances creativity and learning. Warren highly encourages members of the ensemble to create their own arrangements to perform, and even teaches singers who wish to learn. Last year, Wong arranged “Super Bass” for the group, and they ended up performing it at their last concert.
“You know, I truly fear creative tasks because there is no objective measure of correctness,” Wong said. “[But,] Brandon creates a very safe environment for people to learn.”
Now every Sunday night, 40 people from all different walks of life squeeze into a small dance room. Folding chairs are arranged in tight rows, angled towards a scuffed, wooden piano, where Warren plays the keys. As the clock hits 6 p.m., the room fills with harmonic sound. From the deep resonance of the basses to the poised hum of the sopranos, with the altos and tenors filling the space between. During breaks, the music gives way to laughter. Members drift away from their sections, and the room fills with buzz about work, school, or weekend plans.
Warren has created a space for others to create their own “double life.” An escape from the grind of their nine-to-fives, something he is all too familiar with.
“My students shouldn’t see me as the music guy, and that’s OK,” Warren said with a chuckle. “They don’t want to hear about me. And if they ask, it’s usually for the sake of derailing me.”
For Warren, the choice to become a teacher wasn’t a departure from music, but a way to make both passions sustainable. The balance between the two is what makes it possible to keep creating at all. When Monday morning comes, and Warren returns to his hectic classroom, in the midst of flying gum wrappers and teenage angst, he will be reminded of the peace to come on Sunday nights. There, Warren and his singers become something beyond their weekday titles. In a world that often measures worth by stability, they’ve constructed their own kind of success: coming together to create harmony out of the noise of their everyday lives.