Creative Team
ROK's creative team designs, directs, and produces our customized shows and curriculum guides each year.
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ANSLEY vALENTINE, STAGE dIRECTOR
Ansley is a professional director and choreographer for the theater and musical theater and an educator with experience teaching professionally at the collegiate level and in both public and private performing arts high schools. Ansley is currently a proud member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC). He is a co-founder and the producing artistic director of Ohio Youth Ensemble Stage, a professionally-managed summer youth theater program that celebrates diversity, inclusion, and equal opportunity for all students no matter their ability. |
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danielle Long, Production Manager
With a commanding and vibrant stage presence, Danielle Long brings a deep love of storytelling to each of her performances. As at home in Shakespeare as she is in Mozart, Danielle transitions handily from female to male roles, and pairs honed physical awareness, earned during her experience as a professional ballet dancer, with a rich and flexible voice to tell the stories of men and women of all ages, including: Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier; Isabel in Pirates of Penzance, with Cedar Rapids Opera; the Sorceress in Dido and Æneas, with IU Summer Opera; Adza in L’étoile, with IU Opera Theater; Mad Margaret in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Ruddigore, with the Gilbert and Sullivan Very Light Opera Company; Dame Marthe in Faust, with Opera Reading Project; Prospero in The Tempest, with IU Players; Macduff and King Duncan in Macbeth, with IU Theatre; the Clown in The Winter’s Tale, also with IU Theatre; and Roxane, in Cyrano de Bergerac, with the Dorothy K. Merrill Arts Center. A champion for new music, Danielle premiered the role of Rhiannon in Rhiannon’s Condemnation with New Voices Opera, she premiered Anne Frank with the Jacobs School of Music Opera Theater, and she premiered new opera Swimming in the Dark. Danielle also prioritizes bringing live classical music to communities, especially those unfamiliar with opera, and hopes that her antics in Rufus & Rita and Aesop’s Fables, with Re-Imagining Opera for Kids, entertain children and parents alike. Danielle also performed the role of Unicorn in Bloomington composer Lauren Bernofsky’s opera, Mooch the Magnificent, in August 2024. As a Teaching Artist for Opera on Tap’s children’s outreach program, Playground Opera, Danielle loved bringing opera to children in the Bloomington community. Her students inspired her and helped her grow immensely as an artist. Danielle earned her Bachelor of Music from St. Olaf College, and her Master of Music in Voice Performance with a Graduate Certificate in Vocology from Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. She has used her Italian proficiency, earned during the pandemic from the Università per stranieri di Perugia, and her French proficiency, to share the heart of human experience in these languages, both in operatic and recital settings. Danielle is frequently engaged as an oratorio soloist; she has performed as the Alto soloist for Handel’s Messiah, Beethoven’s Messe in C, Saint-Saëns’ Oratorio de Noël, and Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass, among others. Danielle also regularly performs as a recitalist for concert series in and around her hometown in the St. Louis Metro-east area; she won First Place in the Southern Illinois Young Arts Organization Vocal Competition for 2024, and she is grateful for the joy she can give back to the community that continues to support her artistic goals. |
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Ben Rardin, executive director
Ben Rardin began singing opera for kids in 2010 during his first year of undergrad at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and never stopped. After finishing his masters in voice at Indiana University, he joined ROK and has been performing with them since 2016. When he isn't goofing off in front of hundreds of kids, Ben is a firefighter/EMT with the White River Township Fire Department. Ben lives in Bloomington with his wife Emily and children Claire and Ian. |
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Jonathan Elmore, Music Director
Hailed as an “…intense, blossoming tenor,” Jonathan Elmore is excelling in opera, oratorio, and recital across the world. In the 2024/2025 season, he appears as Governor & Vanderdendur/Candide with the Northern Lights Music Festival, Vocal Fellow with the Ravinia Steans Music Institute, Gabriel von Eisenstein/Die Fledermaus with IU Opera and Ballet Theatre, and Tenor Soloist/Haydn’s Creation with Fresno Community Chorus Inc. Jonathan has previously appeared with Indianapolis Opera, Music Academy of the West, Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, Columbus Philharmonic Orchestra, Tel Aviv Summer Opera, and Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra. Jonathan is currently a Doctor of Music degree candidate at Indiana University, where he also earned his Master of Music degree in Voice. Jonathan is currently studying with soprano Heidi Grant Murphy. A Southwest Virginia native, Jonathan received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Vocal Performance at Virginia Tech (’20) under the tutelage of tenor Brian Thorsett. Jonathan is an Associate Instructor in Voice at Indiana University. |
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Jasper Chambreau, Administrative Assistant
Jasper Chambreau is a Junior in the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University studying Double Bass Performance with a minor in Business Management. He has worked as an intern for ROK since the fall of 2024. He is also a research assistant for the Nobel Peace Prize-nominated business law and ethics professor Tim Fort. Jasper is a staff writer with the Undergraduate Law Journal at IU and the Treasurer for the IU Double Bass club. As a musician, he has performed across the country and internationally with orchestral programs including the National Youth Orchestra USA and the National Orchestral Institute and Festival. Jasper enjoys playing basketball, reading, and cooking in his free time. |