Jonja Leon Merck
music director | pianist | conductor | drummer | copyist
Reviews |
Biography |
I had the pleasure of working alongside Jonja as the Associate Music Director for Bard Musical Theatre Company’s production of Spring Awakening [...] I am honored to have had him as a teacher. His conducting is incredibly clear and also nuanced and detailed. His musicality truly brings an ensemble together and brings it to its best. His readiness, meticulous eye, and high level of ability made this show [with all its musical/notational vagaries and idiosyncratic structures] possible. |
Jonja was born in Ho-Chi-Minh-City, Vietnam and grew up in Berlin, Germany where he received classical piano lessons from Chie Muto-Kumai at the age of 4, and later studied with Gesine Tiefuhr-Disselhorst.
As early as middle school, Jonja began conducting and co-leading the senior orchestra with violinist/arranger Erasmus Meinerts. Throughout his middle and high school career, he conducted/arranged/music directed and played drums for various musical theatre productions. He completed the International Baccalaureate Bilingual Diploma and holds the ECIS Award for International Understanding. Jonja currently splits his time between Berlin and New York where, since 2018, he has been attending Bard College as a jazz piano and theatre & performance major. Under the jazz program, he receives instruction from Larry Ham and John Esposito, and conducting lessons from James Bagwell. Jonja is the music director/music supervisor for The Bard Musical Theatre Company, a student-run club comprised of more than 150 student theatre artists whose performances attract over 1,000 attendees every year. For the 2020 production of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS annual concert Broadway Backwards, Jonja served as the Music Assistant, under the lead of Music Supervisor Mary-Mitchell Campbell (Mean Girls, The Prom, Tuck Everlasting) and Music Director Ted Arthur (Diane: A New Musical, Mean Girls, The Prom). His most recent shows include The Gauntlet, Songs For A New World, The Last Five Years, The 25th Putnam County Spelling Bee, Promenade, Spring Awakening, and Pippin. He is also currently working on an original musical theatre show with lyrics by Laila Perlman. Jonja is a proud member of MUSE (Musicians United for Social Equity) and a student in the MUSE One-On One mentorship program (mentor Andrea Grody - The Band's Visit and Tootsie). Check out upcoming projects and my resume! |