Staff
Jonathon Roberts (Founder, Artistic Director) Is a composer and performer from Wisconsin living in New York City. His compositions range from solo piano/vocal pieces to large ensemble works, electronic music and theatrical sound designs, drawing from a classical background influenced by pop, jazz, and musical theater. He performs in NYC as a solo artist and regularly with The Renaldo The Ensemble. He has an ongoing goal of setting the entire Bible to music and has toured the US with the multimedia theater work Project Paul, a piece he created with Scott Baye and Christy Bagasao. www.jmtr.com
Emily Clare Zempel (Co-Founder, Managing Director) is an actor and musician based in New York City. She received her MFA in acting in 2007 from Brooklyn College, and has since been acting both in NYC and regionally. Favorite credits include Katherine in Love’s Labour’s Lost at Milwaukee Shakespeare, Ophelia in Hamlet at Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing at Roosevelt Shakespeare, and Wittenberg at Rep Stage, which was just nominated for a Helen Hayes Award. She is part of Spark and Echo the Band and has co-written the original play Esther with Jonathon Roberts . www.emilyclarezempel.com
Charis J. Carmichael Braun (Director of Visual Art) A painter, designer, instructor and arts administrator, Charis earned her MFA from the New York Academy of Art. She is currently the manager of a private gallery and is also the President of the Alumni Association where she enjoys connecting people with opportunities, sharing information to strengthen communities, and creating culture. Her artwork has been exhibited internationally and may be found in both private and public collections. charisjcarmichaelbraun.tumblr.com
Janna Dyk (Advisory Committee) Janna is a Queens-based artist, arts administrator, and educator. Program coordinator at the New York Center for Art and Media Studies (NYCAMS) in Chelsea, Janna has exhibited work in New York City, Lexington, Seattle, and Los Angeles. She has been a teaching artist at schools and other venues in New York, Washington, and Kentucky. Particularly interested in the interaction of art, spirituality, and community, Janna on occasion writes and blogs about the topic for various sources.
James Hall (Advisory Committee) James is an improvising trombonist and composer. Originally from Omaha, Nebraska, he graduated from the Lawrence Conservatory of Music in 2007. He headed the James Hall Group in Vienna, Austria for two years, earning recognition at the Antti Rissanen International Jazz Trombone Competition, the J.J. Johnson International Jazz Trombone Competition, and an ASCAPlus award for composition. After Europe, James accepted a fellowship at the Trinity Forum Academy before moving to New York. He currently enjoys a busy performing and arranging schedule with various salsa and jazz ensembles.
John Roberts (Nature/Educational Associate) is a consulting dairy veterinarian by profession and an avid canoeist by passion. As a life-style conservationist from Northern Wisconsin, co-founder of Lakeshore Natural Resource Partnership and the Friends of the Branch River, an advising member of the River Alliance of Wisconsin and the WDNR Pine-Popple Wild Rivers program, he has motivated people to joyfully appreciation of the wonders in our own backyard. His project, Nature’s Lamp, provides educational resources focusing on God and Nature as well as a massive cross-referenced database of all nature-related passages in the Bible.
