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A New Jersey native and East Brunswick resident, Joanna holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Crane School of Music, SUNY College at Potsdam, and a Master of Music degree from Ithaca College. She is a retired vocal, general, and instrumental music teacher, having taught grades K-12 in New York, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. Along with her work on the East Brunswick Arts Commission, Joanna is an energetic member of the New York Philharmonic Volunteer Council. Joanna has taught in the Osher Life Long Learning Institute at Rutgers University. She is an Evaluator of high school musicals for the Paper Mill Playhouse’s Rising Star Award educational program and has adjudicated over 80 shows since 2000. In the past, she was a founding member of the Teacher Liaison Committee of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and was Education Coordinator of the Binghamton Symphony. An active musician, Joanna has performed as a chamber musician, solo pianist, and accompanist throughout the New York metropolitan area and upstate New York, Europe, and Israel. Joanna has served as the Musical Director for the Montclair Operetta Club, All Children’s Theater in Livingston, and Stormy Night Productions at Playhouse 22, as well as many high school and professional musical productions. She is currently working as a freelance pianist , adult music educator, and synagogue/church accompanist. Joanna is a proud member of the Music Critics Association of North America.

 America's most uncoordinated childhood ballet and tap student before discovering that her talents were music and writing, Marakay Rogers finally traded in her violin for law school when she realized that she might make more money in law than she did performing with the Potomac Symphony and in orchestra pits around the mid-Atlantic. Unfortunately, she forgot to factor in the student loan repayments! She has never recovered from being chewed out by Terrence Mann in public for hanging up her bow. 

A graduate of Wilson College (PA), Marakay is also a writer, film reviewer and interviewer. Additionally, as of 2014, she serves as vice-chair of the Advisory Board of the Beaux Arts Society, Inc. and is a member of GALECA. 

She's also taught college-level communications, writing, theatre criticism and English literature classes, has received multiple writing awards  for several small-press novels, and is listed in Marquis' "Who's Who in America".  She has done additional post-collegiate English and drama studies coursework with Open University (UK) in drama and literature.

Her junior high English teacher was Broadway star Katrina Yaukey's mother, Kay Yaukey.  (Her high school math teacher was Ordean Yaukey, Katrina Yaukey's father, but between Marakay's mother, an editor, and Katrina's mother, English won out.) Marakay is senior theatre critic for Central Pennsylvania and a senior editor for BWWBooksWorld as well as a classical music reviewer. In her free time, Marakay practices law and often gets it right.