Janet Noh grew up believing she had to be successful in order to meet her family’s expectations. But ultimately her idea of what “success” meant shifted from one of financial wealth to an increasing desire for self-expression through music. Janet tells the story of how she reconciled these pressures — and ultimately built a successful musical career on Broadway. Janet Noh is a bi-coastal (NYC & LA) songwriter, performing vocalist, and classical pianist originally from Seattle, Washington. After graduating from Yale with a double major in economics and history, she started her career as an investment banker on Wall Street. It didn’t take long to learn that spreadsheets and data couldn’t feed a creative spirit. After winning a full scholarship at NYU-Tisch and receiving her M.F.A. in musical theatre writing, she abruptly abandoned finance for good (her parents still don’t know, please don’t tell).
Since graduating in 2016, she made her Broadway debut in ROCKTOPIA and has been a featured performer at The Lincoln Center, New York City Center, The Public Theater in NYC, among other venues. Also an active educator, Janet is currently a teaching artist at Lincoln Center Theater, a guest songwriter at Columbia University, composer-in-residence at Borough of Manhattan Community College, and was a music director at Marymount Manhattan College (MMC).
Janet has been commissioned to write a musical for Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing, scheduled to be released worldwide by Rodgers & Hammerstein Theatricals. Her musical PANGAEA was produced at Live & In Color and MMC with the support of The Frederick Loewe Foundation. She was chosen to write and perform an original piece for the BARS Workshop at the Public Theater where she worked with original cast members of Hamilton.
Currently, Janet is working on a new musical about North Korea, an EP of original music, and is writing songs for an upcoming feature film (Anastasia) set to be released in 2019 by Paramount Pictures and Netflix.