Board of Directors

2020 – 2021 Season

John Hegarty chairs the Board of Directors of Red Cedar Chamber Music. He and his wife Kay (a former board member) have been avid supporters of Red Cedar Chamber Music since its inception.

John was born and raised in Cedar Rapids. As a student he was involved in concert choir, show choir and theater, in addition to competing in many sports. He received his B.A. in Education from the University of Iowa.

 John was a science teacher and successful coach in the Cedar Rapids Community School District for 33 years, retiring in 2012. Today, he remains busy working for Hughes Nursery and Landscaping. He also enjoys broadcasting high school football games on KGYM radio, and writing curriculum and assessment for the Continuing Education Department at Kirkwood.

 John is excited to return to his musical and performing arts roots serving as a Red Cedar board member, historical researcher, writer, and spokesperson.

 

As a fine arts educational advocate in our community, Melissa Summers is excited to have joined the Red Cedar Chamber Music board in July 2015. She has worked for the Cedar Rapids Community School District as a music teacher and fine arts curriculum facilitator for over 25 years.

She currently is the music and curriculum integration specialist at the newly opened Johnson STEAM Academy Magnet School in Cedar Rapids. Now that she is an “empty nester”, with her son and daughter-in-law in Marion and daughter in Colorado, she also serves as an active board member for the Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre, Eastern Iowa Arts Academy, and the Paul Engle Association for Community Arts. She has served as an adjunct education professor for Mt. Mercy University and has been an instructor and conference presenter for the University of Iowa, Drake University and Area Education Agencies.

She has written integrated curriculum teacher guides and lesson plans for area arts education organizations as well as the Kennedy Arts Center and NPR’s, From the Top. Melissa also enjoys being an education committee volunteer for Playtime Poppy Children’s Theatre of Cedar Rapids and the coordinator of the extensive before and after school educational enrichment programming at Johnson School.

Jonathan Ice of Cedar Rapids has loved classical music since he was a kid, dabbling in piano and trombone as a child, but in college finding his niche in vocal music.  Outside of five years of voice lessons, he has little formal musical training, but got hooked on symphonic choral music in 1973, when he sang a year in Cleveland Orchestra chorus.  He has sought out choirs ever since, and currently sings in Chamber Singers of Iowa City.  The peak of his musical career was in Minneapolis, where he sang ten years with Minnesota Chorale under Joel Revzen and Kathy Romey.

Legally blind his whole life, Jonathan has not let that define what he does.  He earned a B.A. in sociology from Carleton College and worked in a series of entry-level jobs for the next 20 years, finally finding a career as a rehabilitation teacher, serving the Iowa Department for the Blind for 17 years, and another 3 in New Mexico before retiring in 2017.  His work bred familiarity with 5 of the 7 counties Red Cedar serves (Linn, Cedar, Jones, Benton, Johnson).

Jonathan married his wife Karla in 1989 and they enjoy the outdoors (hiking, camping, wildflowers), traveling back roads all over the place, cultural diversity, reading, and music.  They first attended a Red Cedar event in the early 2000’s and slowly became addicted.  After returning to Iowa from New Mexico in 2018 their obvious interest in Red Cedar elicited his invitation to be their newest board member (2020).

Todd Hendricks joined Red Cedar Chamber Music’s Board of Directors in 2019.  He is a director in McGladrey’s state and local tax practice. He provides services on various state and local tax issues, including sales and use taxes, income taxes and payroll taxes. His primary focus is on sales and use tax refund projects and state tax controversy assistance. In the past ten years,

Todd has performed more than 50 Iowa sales and use tax reviews for clients. Several of the reviews have resulted in significant current and future tax savings.

Todd has given numerous presentations on state and local tax issues to internal and external groups, including numerous client tax update seminars.

Tom Carroll joined Red Cedar Chamber Music’s Board of Directors in 2016. Tom is a CPA with a PhD from the Univ. of Michigan and a BBA from the Univ. of Notre Dame.  He worked as an auditor for Ernst & Whinney in Cleveland and Washington, D.C. 

Tom joined the University of Iowa in 1989 and taught accounting at the graduate and undergraduate levels until his retirement in 2022.  He also directed the Master of Accountancy Program, supervising numerous graduate students during his tenure. 

Tom serves on the on the Board of Directors of the STO of Southeast Iowa and tutors elementary school reading. He and his wife, Patrice, reside in Iowa City. They have two children who are following their dreams in Washington, D.C.  Much to Patrice’s chagrin, Tom suffers from a severe case of adult onset musicianship confirming his belief in the power of music to change lives.

Lyse Strnad began practicing as a general ophthalmologist in Iowa City in 1987. She is an Adjunct Clinical Professor of the University of Iowa Department of Ophthalmology and serves as an Associate Examiner for the American Board of Ophthalmology.

She served as President of the Iowa Academy of Ophthalmology. In a former life, she played intercollegiate field hockey at Stanford University, and played in the National tournament.  She continues to serve Stanford as an Alumni Volunteer Interviewer.

Hobbies include horseback riding, mushroom hunting, bee keeping and participating in a book club. She enjoys volunteering for her Church and her boys’ school where she is an officer of the PSTO and also serves as the costume chair for the Show Choir.

She spent many evenings in her youth listening to the Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall. She, her husband, Tom Leavenworth, and two boys enjoy classical music, ballet, opera and musicals.

She has enjoyed hearing Red Cedar Chamber Music at the rural outreach venues as well as the MainStage performances.  She and her family believe that live performance is a treasured form of human communication, and nothing personifies the intimacy and connection between music and the public like chamber music.

Miera Kim, Executive Director

Carey Bostian, Artistic Director

[email protected]

Phone to (319) 338-0307

Red Cedar Chamber Music
PO Box 154
Marion IA 52302