Nestor's musical life started as a Catholic elementary student in California. He sang in the school choir, and learned music from both a college professor and several nuns at the school. While his family was not wealthy, his parents agreed to go into debt to buy a piano, on the condition that he would promise to practice it.
As a high school freshman, Nestor began studying at the seminary for the Franciscan friars of the Province of St. Barbara, where he learned to play organ, began composing, and met other seminarians who had musical training. He also learned Latin and other theological and academic subjects. Near the end of his training, however, the seminary closed, leaving him to change courses in pursuing the study of music.
After completing his undergraduate degree at California State University, East Bay, Nestor returned to Los Angeles for graduate study. There, he conducted choirs and orchestras for two local parishes.
Nestor was next brought to Washington, D.C. to conduct at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. There, he spent 17 years as music director, right next to the campus of The Catholic University of America, where he also became an adjunct teacher.
After years of working next to the university, Nestor became a full-time professor there. "You love your kids, and over the years that's been one of the great joys," he said of teaching.
Over the years, Nestor has also served as an advisor to the U.S. Secretariat for Divine Worship. He has composed music for four papal visits to the United States: St. John Paul II's visits to Los Angeles (1987) and Saint Louis (1999), as well as the Washington, D.C. visits of Pope Benedict XVI (2008) and Pope Francis (2015).
But the concerts and titles are not what Nestor finds most meaningful. Rather, he said that he is grateful for what the compositions let him offer to God and to teach his students.
He said that in great part, he owes the honor of the papal knighthood to his students, because of what he's been able to learn with them, but also how he's been able to serve and teach students to transform the music they work with.
At the university, he primarily taught sacred music and conducting. He described his job as helping students to take the vision of "whomever" – from Palestrina in the 16th century to Stravinsky in the 20th century – and to bring those ideas from the music "into the hearts and minds of these people who are coming to hear you."
"That is a process that is new and electric at every hearing."
He also commented on conducting and playing music as spiritually significant events, sacrificially emptying out one's self to portray the thoughts of the composer, and offering music to one's audience – or, in the case of the Liturgy, to God.
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Reflecting on an accomplished academic and musical career, Nestor said that he hopes his life of work reflects what the laity can offer the Church today.
"In the seminary we learn about the arguments for the existence of God," he said. "For the artist, one of the easiest is the argument for the existence of God from beauty."
Adelaide Mena was the DC Correspondent for Catholic News Agency until 2017 and is a 2012 graduate of Princeton University.