Emily Alexandra Bengels

Biography

Emily Bengels is graduate of Bryn Mawr College, with Masters Degrees from Rutgers GSE and U Missouri Columbia and a PhD in Holocaust and Genocide Studies from Gratz College. By day, Emily is a public school teacher, and by night and weekend, she is a musician with musical theaters and choral groups in Central New Jersey.

She is the music director for the First Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Hunterdon County as well as the conductor for Kol Ahava, a choir operating out of Congregation Kehilat Shalom. Previously, she conducted the Somerset Valley (now Brook) Orchestra. Emily music directs in community theaters such as Trilogy Repertory, Playhouse 22, North Brunswick Drama Group, and Somerset Valley Playhouse. She has received a Perry Award for Outstanding Music Direction of My Fair Lady at Playhouse22 and has received nominations for her Music Direction of The Fantasticks at Villagers Theater and Xanadu at Playhouse 22. Emily organizes fundraising concerts for social action themes each year, under the name "Songs for Humanity." Past concerts have focused on refugees and on food scarity. This year's performance focuses on neurodiversity.