Born in Springfield, Missouri, Nathan Wadley has been passionate about singing for as long as he can remember. 

“My parents have recordings of me singing when I was 3 years old, before I could really talk properly,” he says. “And so it’s what has always been there for me.”

Singing has always been part of Nathan’s life, but there was a point when he took it to the next level.  “My first real, real opportunity was when I was in sixth grade,” he said. 

“I became a member of the American Boys Choir. And so I moved to New Jersey and went to boarding school and left my family so that I could study music.” 

This marked the moment in Nathan’s life where singing turned from a passion into something he could envision pursuing as a career.

Nathan tells young musicians considering a career in music, “You need very thick skin, and it is a lot of it is a lot of putting yourself out there without a lot of reward in the beginning. You have to you have to really love what you’re doing.”          

While passionate about music, Nathan, a major Beetles fan and master of three instruments, has other interests. Growing up in rural Missouri, Nathan has always loved camping, fishing, cycling and life in the great outdoors. Nathan also loves the city of Prague in the Czech Republic. 

At Friends Select, Nathan enjoys the school’s urban environment and Quaker identity. “I’m not a Quaker myself, but I like everything it stands for,” he says. “Even though it’s kind of a small building, [Friends Select] sees the city as its classroom, and I see that to be true.”