STAFF & BOARD

OFFICE STAFF

MICHELLE WOSTER

Executive Director
mwoster@thecedar.org

  • Pronouns: She/Her

    Michelle has a long history of organizational and development leadership in the Twin Cities' non-profit sector, having served as Managing Director for two Minneapolis performing arts organizations: Theater Latté Da and Ten Thousand Things. She also was proud to spend several years raising funds for The Center for Victims of Torture and The Family Partnership. Supporting organizations in service to working artists is a passion. She currently serves on the board of the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District, one-square mile where more than 1,200 artists live and work. She has lived in northeast Minneapolis for nearly 25 years with her husband Peter Quale, where they have raised their three children (the middle one named after Emmylou Harris!).

John marks

Operations Director
jmarks@thecedar.org

  • Pronouns: He/Him

    John brings 20 years of experience building community and fostering collaboration across disciplines in the Twin Cities arts landscape. He served as a technical coordinator at the University of Minnesota’s School of Music for over 15 years. John is co-founder and co-director of Art of This, a project-driven nonprofit arts organization focused on creating platforms for local culture. He co-curated the Soap Factory’s 2013 Minnesota Biennial, and was co-organizer of the Tuesday Series for Improvised Music.

    John is an active artist and performer working at the intersection of sound, moving image and visual art. His work has been commissioned by the Walker Art Center and Red Eye Theater, and presented at museums, festivals, and underground venues throughout North America. He is a founding member of Mirror Lab, a studio collective and programming space in South Minneapolis.

    John holds a Masters of Professional Studies in Arts and Cultural Leadership from the UMN, where his studies focused on artist-led, horizontally managed organizations. He lives in the Midtown Phillips Neighborhood with his wife, musician Crystal Myslajek and their two daughters.

Mary Brabec

Mary Brabec

Booking Director
mbrabec@thecedar.org

MJ GIlmore

Sr. Box Office and Development Operations Manager
mjgilmore@thecedar.org

  • Pronouns: She/Her

    Background: MJ has enjoyed hearing beautiful music and heartfelt stories of musicians and community members at The Cedar throughout the years, where she is the Sr. Box Office and Development Operations Manager.

    Contact MJ about:

    • Purchasing tickets

    • Accessibility requests and questions

    • Show information, including times, prices, and other questions

    • Lost and found questions

    • All other general questions about The Cedar's venue and offerings

BO YOUNG AN

Marketing and Communications Manager
ban@thecedar.org

  • Bo Young An joined the Cedar staff intially as the Marketing and Programming Associate before taking on her new role as the Marketing and Communications Manager in January 2024. Bo moved to Minneapolis from Seoul, Korea in the summer of 2020 to pursue her Master of Fine Arts degree at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She has become a master of many trades since moving to the Twin Cities, thriving in a diverse professional landscape and demonstrating expertise in graphic design, sponsorship coordination, marketing and in the arts as both artist and curator. She is an enthusiastic listener of pop, classical, and jazz music and has a biased fondness of the rich tones of brass instruments as she used to play the trumpet.

Robert Lehmann

Community and Grant-Funded Programs Manager
rlehmann@thecedar.org

  • Pronouns: He/Him

    Background: Robert works on The Cedar’s community and grant-funded programming including The Cedar Commissions, our program for emerging artist development; Global Roots Festival, our free, annual, three day festival featuring international artists new to the Twin Cities; and community programming which covers free outdoor programming, special collaborations with organizations, and local artist community building.

    Robert first joined the staff in fall of 2018 as a cross-department member supporting both marketing and booking efforts, and has held the lead marketing and booking roles prior to his current role. Prior to this, Robert taught middle-school youth in the summers and worked with high school students on college access at Patrick Henry in North. Robert earned a BA in English and Mathematics from St. Olaf College where he studied piano performance and sang in choir all four years.

    Robert is an active artist in the Twin Cities music community.

    Contact Robert about:

    - Questions about Cedar Commissions, Global Roots Festival, The Cedar Public Access Channel, and Midnimo.

    - Questions about community programming and non-performance ways for local artists to connect with The Cedar.

EVENTs

Jared Hemming

Event Manager/Volunteer Coordinator
jhemming@thecedar.org

  • Volunteer Coordinator/ Events Assistant
    volunteer@thecedar.org / jhemming@thecedar.org
    Pronouns: He/Him

    Background: As a biracial kid growing up in Coon Rapids and Pequot Lakes, Minnesota, Jared has always understood music is vital. Playing percussion and drums in various school bands kept him out of trouble (surprisingly) and helped him realize our differences bond us. Desperate for diversity, he moved to Minneapolis in 2012. He dove into the Twin Cities music community immediately, attending and playing shows with glee. His first show at The Cedar was of Montreal, a perfect entry into the colorful world existing inside this old movie theater. In 2016, he joined the Cedar as a house manager, and he’s thrilled to work closer with The Cedar’s amazing volunteers as Volunteer Coordinator and Events Assistant. He previously worked as a special education teaching assistant at Saint Paul Public Schools, assisting special needs students as they learned how to produce music. He earned his BA in journalism from the University of Minnesota in 2016, and has written for City Pages, MPR News and the Minnesota Daily. When he’s not attending, working or drumming at shows, he likes to write, joke around and get tattoos.

    Contact Jared about:

    How to become a volunteer

House Managers

Patrick Larkin

House Manager

  • Pronouns: He/Him

    Patrick joined the Cedar as an office assistant working 3 hours a day five days a week in 2011, before transitioning into a House Manager position the following year. In addition to working as a House Manger, he is currently working as an Associate Librarian in Hennepin County Libraries at a very loud and lively library. In the past he's worked as a gas station attendant, flower waterer, personal care assistant, and a newspaper editor at the East Side Review in St. Paul. When he's not working, he endures to do home improvement, and enjoys curating music events and playing in longtime band the Miami Dolphins, or solo under the moniker P. Larkin, which is pretty much just the first initial of his first name and then his last name. He also likes to fish.

caleigh souhan

Sr. Events Manager
csouhan@thecedar.org

  • Pronouns: She/Her

    Caleigh has been sneaking out to see shows in Minneapolis since the early 2000’s and has been a part of many DIY spaces and venues across the Twin Cities. While attending the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, she found Radio K and was able to join the staff first as Traffic Director, then was promoted to Music Director shortly after. While serving as Music Director, Caleigh was nominated for two awards at CMJ: Music Director of the Year and Outstanding Leadership in College Radio. She also served as Program Director for Radio K before graduating in December 2012 with a Bachelor of Individualized Studies in Art, Theatre Arts, & Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature.

    Caleigh was hired as a Booking Assistant at First Avenue in August of 2013 where she learned what it takes to make a show happen. She was promoted to Talent Buyer and was in charge of booking, settling, and advancing shows.

    After leaving First Avenue at the end of 2016, Caleigh worked as a stagehand and audio assistant for Slamhammer Productions, booked Punk Bowling at Memory Lanes, managed her father’s podcast network and website, and worked at The Mill NE as a wait assist. She briefly worked for Amsterdam Bar & Hall in 2019 as an Assistant Event Manager before being hired as a neighborhood organizer for St. Anthony East Neighborhood Association. During the 2020 uprising, Caleigh started working in shelters in an effort to more directly assist her community. Caleigh joined The Cedar’s team in September of 2021.

    Caleigh has a beautiful 6yo mutt named Shadow who loves love and demands snuggles. When she’s not out at shows, she’s probably hanging with Shadow at the dog park or at home.

Sam Ray

House Manager

Jordan Olsen

House Manager

  • Pronouns: He/Him

    Jordan has attended shows at the Cedar from a young age. As his musical interests expanded over the years the Cedar's presentations have easily accommodated them with their diverse array of style and idiom and it's no wonder this mutually beneficial relationship has persisted. The St. Paul native holds a trade degree in watchmaking, a field he worked in for 6 years before setting aside the practice to prioritize other creative pursuits and begin volunteering at The Cedar, and later join its staff. He is an artist, fabricator, musician, and arts facilitator who has interned at Franconia Sculpture Park and helped build a ceramics residency in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Jordan's socks rarely match and his eyes go all googly if you talk about plants or fungi within earshot.

Mollierae miller

House Manager

  • Pronouns: They/She

    MollieRae moved to Minneapolis in 2012 to study art and quickly found their unique passions for the live music to be found in the Twin Cities. While growing up they were lucky enough to be exposed to all kinds of folk music and trade craft scenes while tagging along with their folk artist parents. Having gone to school for art and returning again to study library science has accelerated MollieRae’s quest for all sorts of knowledge and creative expression. The Cedar is a space where they could find the kinds of music and dance they love as well as revisit favorite musicians they fell for years ago. Having been working in Minneapolis nonprofits for years, they carry a constant excitement to help the community become engaged with the gift of the Cedar as well as with the beauty of the Twin Cities’ arts and culture. Currently an acrylic painter and a student, MollieRae can also be found biking through the city, reading, dancing, cooking and laughing while telling long stories.

Matt “doc” jones

House Manager

  • Pronouns: He/Him

    Matt "Doc" is an eager but profoundly mediocre guitarist who moved to the Twin Cities in 1989 to continue his medical training just in time for the birth of The Cedar as a live music venue. He discovered it fortuitously en route to the Cabooze one night and since has logged 100+ nights of communal aural bliss in the venue that, in his opinion, has a sacred, loving vibe that is unmatched on this planet. Now semi-retired, he finally has time to devote to the staff side of The Cedar experience, enjoying it tremendously. In the world beyond The Cedar, Doc basks in the warm glow of tube amps while spinning all-genre vinyl for anyone who visits his audio lair. He loves his wife and children, critters Althea, Cirrus, and Sahil, hiking, biking, skiing, and travel, volunteers for local and international medical projects, and teaches high performance driving.

Jacob strauss

House Manager

  • Pronouns: He/Him

    Jacob started volunteering at the Cedar in 2018 shortly after moving to the area for graduate school. He joined the Cedar staff in the fall of 2020 as a house manager. When he's not working, Jacob enjoys attending shows, playing with his cat, and hanging out at Palmers.

drey darst kereakos

House Manager

  • Pronouns: They/Them

    Drey is a long-time music player, writer, and enjoyer, as well as soon-to-be Augsburg University grad through the Music Business program (Spring 2022). After graduating from the music department at Perpich Center for Arts Education in 2017, and into their start at Augsburg the following Fall, Drey began performing and releasing music independently under the name "drey dk", where they write, record, produce, mix/master their work as well. Their first globally distributed single "Pity Party" was released in early September of 2019. As a Seward resident of many years, they recently joined the House Manager team at the Cedar in December 2021, and hope to build on and expand their knowledge within multiple facets of the Music Industry outside of performing. You may also spot them working over at Jack's Hardware and Farm Supply, and occasionally as a Camp counselor/music instructor for local non-profit She Rock She Rock over the summer. As much as Drey loves going to shows for fun, when not working, they likely are just eating copious amounts of pizza, shopping for vinyl, or snuggling with their cats.

PAUL MCCOYER

House Manager

EMILY LAZEAR

House Manager

  • Pronouns: She/Her

    Emily grew up in the Twin Cities and credits The Cedar for inspiring her to be a multi-instrumentalist, singer, and artist. She shadowed a Cedar employee for her 9th grade career day and is thrilled to be now working toward the Cedar’s mission of supporting local and international musicians and encouraging intercultural understanding through music. Emily is also a preschool teacher, a volunteer with Women’s Prison Book Project, a Minneapolis Election Judge, and a member of several past and present local bands. She lives in south Minneapolis and enjoys reading, camping, and rockhounding.

KAMA JOHNSON

House Manager

SOUND ENGINEERS

Aren Frymire
Chris Frymire
Eric Hohn
Tony Molinaro
Raymond Yates

contractors

Mitch Bercier, Digital Data Associate

Tori Burggraff, Accountant

Sydney Larson, Accounting Associate

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Maryam Yusefzadeh President
President, MY Consulting Inc.; Co-founder, World Music Ensemble, Robayat, Migrations

Loki Karuna Vice President
Interdisciplinary Arts Activist

Robert Van Nelson Treasurer
Treasurer, Donaldson Company Inc.

Sue Eidem

Ritika Ganguly, PhD.
Grant Strategy Consultant, WeCollab LLC

Alana Horton
Communications Officer, Arts Midwest

Steve Jewell
Talent Acquisition Consultant, Diamond In The Rough Recruitment Services

Curt Trisko
Attorney, Cozen O’Connor

Tim Wong
Attorney, Barnes & Thornburg