He holds graduate degrees in conducting from the Mannes College of Music and the Juilliard School, where he studied with Sixten Ehrling.

[citation needed] While still in his twenties, Roger Nierenberg worked on the faculty of Queens College (CUNY), where, among other roles, he was a one-semester substitute chorus director.

[4] Nierenberg is also the creator of The Music Paradigm, a pioneering learning experience for organizations of all types that brings live orchestral performances to audiences outside the traditional concert hall.

Using music as a metaphor, Nierenberg conducts a professional orchestra in a series of spontaneous role-playing exercises that reveal how behavior and attitude impact results.

Over the past twenty years, Nierenberg has presented to hundreds of different organizations, from civic groups to Fortune 100 companies,[5] in twenty-four different countries with musicians from more than 95 different professional orchestras.