Sound designer. Composer. Educator.
Creating whole worlds out of sound.
Jon Robertson makes sound and music for performance—and builds the environments and tools that ambitious ideas require. A member of United Scenic Artists, Local USA 829, he is a sound designer, composer, and educator whose practice connects theatre, immersive audio, and creative technology.
His theatre work includes Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s The Color Purple, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, and Cyrano de Bergerac; The Acting Company’s X: Or, Betty Shabazz vs. the Nation as associate sound designer; and On Site Opera’s Lesson Plan. His long collaboration with White Snake Projects brings sound, opera, and technological invention together.
Over many years in Kansas City, Jon collaborated on dozens of productions with Unicorn Theatre, Kansas City Actors Theatre, Music Theatre Heritage, Kansas City Kansas Community College, and The White Theatre at the Jewish Community Center. He also served for four years as Sound Supervisor at Music Theatre Heritage, leading its sound department and mentoring emerging designers and engineers.
Recent New York work includes This Dream Has Teeth at The Tank, NYC, and How to Shit in Public, an audiovisual installation created in collaboration with Nina Fry at The Bechdel Project in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. He is also composing and designing sound for Buried Child at Strongbox Theater in East Rockaway, New York.
As Visiting Assistant Professor and Director of Creative Technologies at the University of Evansville, Jon builds learning environments where students can move from an artistic idea to the skills, tools, and collaborations needed to realize it. He has led curriculum redevelopment, created courses and interdisciplinary opportunities, and designed and built the Lutz Lab Immersive Audio Environment—a 22-channel system within the existing Lutz Lab. His work includes a professional podcast lab, the Creative Tech Showcase, and the university’s first course devoted to augmented and virtual reality. He co-chairs UE’s AI Taskforce Committee and serves on the Vanderburgh County Data Center Research Committee, extending his engagement with emerging technology into institutional and civic life.
A co-creator of Sound Mandala, Jon develops sound art, new music, and sound theatre that unfold through space. His works bring together spatial composition, electronics, and pre-recorded actors’ voices to create immersive sonic narratives. In summer 2026, he co-produced Sound Mandala’s three-month Kansas City run as a 100-channel loudspeaker installation, presenting original works and immersive listening programs.
When the existing tools cannot realize an idea, Jon often builds his own. His work with White Snake Projects led to Tutti Remote, a system for synchronizing geographically separated performers and audio sources; its underlying synchronization method received a U.S. patent.
His music and sound work has been presented at New Music Gathering, SEAMUS, Electronic Music Midwest, Kansas City Fringe, UC Davis Summer Arts, and Opera America. He previously taught at the University of Missouri–Kansas City, the Kansas City Art Institute, and Missouri Western State University.
Rooted in Kansas City and now extending through Evansville and New York, his practice keeps returning to a shared question: what becomes possible when sound, space, people, and technology meet?
Jon holds an MFA in Sound Design and a Master of Music in Composition from UMKC, and a Bachelor of Music in Composition from the University of Arizona.
