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ADMINISTRATION
Emily Cardenas is the Executive Director of Dranoff 2 Piano Fusion, the Miami-based nonprofit dedicated to fusing two-piano repertoire with the music of many genres and cultures through concerts, collaborations, and education. Building on the organization’s fusion of the classical two-piano tradition with Latin and African rhythms and its Piano Slam youth poetry-and-music education program, Cardenas codified that evolution by leading the rebranding from Dranoff 2 Piano Foundation to Dranoff 2 Piano Fusion since joining in 2024, and she continues to advance the organization’s vision of musical fusion through new artistic collaborations across Miami-Dade County.
A bilingual communicator and storyteller, Cardenas brings decades of experience across television, print journalism, and public relations. In broadcast, she has been a television news writer and producer in Philadelphia, the 6 o’clock news producer at Telemundo 51 in Miami, a writer and producer for CBS4 Miami, and the producer of WPLG Local 10’s political programming, including the public-affairs show “This Week in South Florida with Michael Putney,” documentaries, live town hall meetings, and special election coverage. Her work earned an Emmy Award for segment producing on Éxito, the Sun Sentinel’s Spanish-language television news magazine and the newspaper’s foray into broadcast. In print journalism, she has served as executive editor of both The Miami Times, South Florida’s premier weekly serving the Black community for more than a century, and Biscayne Times.
Cardenas served as Director of Communications for The Children’s Trust, where she built and led the organization’s brand and media campaigns from its founding by voter referendum through nearly fifteen years of growth. She is widely credited with shaping the public identity and brand recognition the organization holds today, an elevated profile that helped lay the groundwork for its eventual reauthorization by Miami-Dade voters. As a communications consultant through her own EC Consulting Miami and as vice president at Hank Meyer Associates, she has provided strategic communications, issues management, and crisis-communications counsel to a wide range of nonprofit and civic clients.
Born in Hartford, Connecticut, of Cuban heritage, Cardenas relocated from New York and has called Miami home since 1989. She holds a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism from Temple University.
EMILY CARDENAS
Executive Director
emily@dranoff2piano.org
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In addition to serving as Dranoff 2 Piano Fusion’s music director, acclaimed pianist and composer Martin Bejerano heads the Jazz Piano Studio at the University of Miami’s acclaimed Frost School of Music.
Bejerano has performed and recorded with numerous jazz luminaries including his 20-year association with GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award-winning drummer Roy Haynes, Christian McBride Band, Dave Holland, Pat Metheny, Ignacio Berroa, Ron Carter, Russell Malone, Dafnis Prieto, Roxana Amed, Brian Lynch, Adam Nussbaum, John Faddis, Roy Hargrove, Marcus Strickland, E.J. Strickland, Mike Rodriguez, Kevin Mahogony, and Lauren Kinhan.
He has performed at most of the major jazz clubs, festivals and venues around the world and is featured on more than 25 recordings, including the GRAMMY nominated Fountain of Youth with the Roy Haynes Quartet, and Roxana Amed’s Latin GRAMMY nominated album Ontology.
An award-winning bandleader, Bejerano’s trio has performed at such notable venues as Symphony Space, Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, The Jazz Gallery, Barquisimeto Jazz Festival, El Hatillo Jazz Festival, St. Petersburg Jazz Festival, Festival Miami, and Lucerne Piano Off-Stage Festival. His last recording, Trio Miami, was named “Editor’s Choice” by Downbeat Magazine. Jazz Times has said, “Add Martin Bejerano to the expanding roster of hot young pianists that stretches from Hiromi Uehara and Eldar Djangirov to Robert Glasper and Taylor Eigsti.”
Chamber Music America awarded Bejerano his second “New Jazz Works” grant in 2017. He has also composed original work for Dranoff 2 Piano Fusion and the Sonos Chamber Orchestra. His work on Roxana Amed’s acclaimed Ontology album in 2021, on which he played piano, composed, and arranged much of the music, contributed to its nomination for a Latin GRAMMY award.
Bejerano continues touring and recording with artists including Roy Haynes, Ignacio Berroa Trio, Dafnis Prieto, Jonathan Kreisberg Quartet, and Roxana Amed, as well as with his current project, #CubanAmerican Trio.
He also is a proud board member of “Arts for Learning,” a non-profit organization that provides free arts education to thousands of children in South Florida.
