Diana Chittester
Music, Singing/Songwriting, & Guitar
Diana Chittester has been building a reputation as one of the area’s most gifted guitar players, intimate songwriters, and forceful vocalists over the past decade, releasing a series of albums that display her growing confidence and ability to communicate feelings that are deeply personal yet universal.
Diana has shared the stage with Lyle Lovett, Gin Blossoms, The Accidentals, Joan Osborne, Peter Mulvey, Chris Trapper, Lisa Loeb, and Colin Hay; performing at PACs and venues across the Eastern US & Canada including Kent State PAC, Stocker Arts, Showplace Centre, Evening Muse, Music Box Supper Club, and The Ark.…
Keri Chryst
Music: Jazz, Improvisation, & French Culture
Ohio native, Keri Chryst (Olentangy High School, class of 1992), has been living and working as a professional vocalist, composer- arranger, and educator in Paris, France since 2003. She specializes in both vocal and instrumental jazz music (Bachelor of Music in jazz studies, 1997, and masters in jazz pedagogy, 1998, Northwestern University) and is also well versed in a variety of styles including Broadway, pop, soul, gospel, and classic choral literature.
For much of the year, Keri travels internationally to perform with big bands and jazz combos or with the jazz vocal trio “Sweet System“.…
Risa Cohen
Music & Dance/Movement
Risa Beth Cohen, M.S.Ed. is an educator, singer/songwriter, speaker, and storyteller. She works with people of all ages and abilities, leading music circles and storytelling workshops. As the Founder and Creative Director of Sing into Reading, Risa is passionate about teaching literacy through music and movement. Risa holds a B.F.A. in acting from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, and an M.S.Ed. in Early Childhood/ Elementary Education from Bank Street College. In 2016, she was the Featured Teller at “Tellebration” in Toledo, Ohio. She is able to craft music and movement classes to align with any topic, ensuring that they are developmentally appropriate and fun.…
Griset Damas-Roche
Dance/Movement, Flamenco
Born in Havana, Griset Damas-Roche studied ballet from a very young age at the Instituto Superior de Arte de Cuba before joining the world-famous National Ballet of Cuba. Then she achieved the Soloist spot in Ballet Espanol de La Habana. In 1998 she moved to Bogotá, Colombia, where she opened the doors to flamenco dance for more than 3,500 students as a teacher and choreographer. For about 17 years she successfully directed her own school and dance company. In 2014, Griset moved to Columbus, Ohio, where she began teaching at the established Flamenco del Corazon studio.…
Sheela Das
Music: Multi-Instrumentalist & Songwriting
Sheela Das is the artistic director and founder of Creative Concepts in Music. With more than a decade of teaching through the arts, she has directed, produced, and delivered compelling workshops and original stage and video productions for students, community members, and professional venues alike.
From songwriting workshops, instrumental music, playwriting and puppetry camps to classroom residencies, Sheela brings her multi-instrumental talent to the joy of hundreds of audiences each year. She has composed more than 350 original, interactive songs and 49 Youtube videos to teach the curriculum in grades K-12 in subjects ranging from social emotional learning to language arts and science.…
Amy Dennison
Music, Wind Instruments, Instrument Making, & Active Music Making (preschool – seniors)
Amy Dennison retired in September 2021 from the University of Cincinnati (UC) College-Conservatory of Music (CCM). During her 20-year tenure at UC she held the positions of program manager, director, director of education and assistant dean. She is the coauthor of “One Voice – Music and Stories in the Classroom.” Primarily a woodwind specialist, Ms. Dennison also plays several string instruments including the mountain dulcimer, the cello, and most recently, the ukulele. She performs in a harp/flute duo, the New Horizons Orchestra (cello), the Queen City Freedom Band (oboe), and the wind player in the Twi-lites, a cover band that features music for the baby boomer crowds.…
Jerzy Drozd
Visual Arts, Comics & Graphic Novels
Jerzy Drozd leads cartooning workshops for children and teens in libraries and schools, as well as for teachers who want to bring comics to the classroom. He wrote and drew Science Comics: Rockets with his wife, Anne Drozd, and is one of the artists of The Warren Commission Report.
Jerzy has drawn special projects for Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, Marvel Comics, VIZ Media, and others. His latest middle grade graphic novel is The Inscrutable Doctor Baer and the Case of the Two-Faced Statue.
Jerzy began work as a teaching artist in 2007 when he served as the lead teaching artist for ArtServe Michigan’s Literacy Arts Comic Book Project, in which he visited 10 Detroit public schools (grades 3-6) to teach students how to make comic books.…
_ ESQYRE
Music, String Quartet, Classical Music, & Orchestral Performance
The Escher String Quartet has received acclaim for its profound musical insight and rare tonal beauty. A former BBC New Generation Artist and recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, the quartet has performed at the BBC Proms at Cadogan Hall and is a regular guest at Wigmore Hall. In its home town of New York, the ensemble serves as season artists of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
The Escher Quartet tours the U.S. extensively, performing in numerous cities and venues including New York’s Alice Tully Hall and Rockefeller University, Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center, the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, La Jolla Music Society, Savannah Music Festival, and Chamber Music Society of Detroit.…
Tom Evert
Dance/Movement
Tom Evert has been a creative force in creating and performing original choreographic works with a company of dancers, working intensively in arts-education programming and creating festival-like community events in Ohio for 38 years.
Tom currently serves as artistic director of DANCE EVERT, which he founded in 1986. He holds BFAs in both painting and dance from Ohio University and has enjoyed a world-class touring career with the Paul Taylor Dance Company in New York City. He has created a major body of work for which he has received eight Individual Excellence Awards in choreography.…
Lynette Ford
Storytelling & Spoken Word
Fourth-generation storyteller Lynette (Lyn) Ford is a teaching artist with the Ohio Teaching Artists Roster and the Ohio Alliance for Arts Education, a Thurber House mentor to young writers, a storytelling and story-writing coach, a certified laughter yoga teacher, and a great-grandma. Lyn has also offered storytelling/story-writing residencies for the Ohio Arts Council’s Creative Aging Ohio Initiative.
For more than 30 years, Lyn has provided stories for libraries and schools, keynote and closing presentations, workshops at universities, education and literacy conferences, and featured programs at some of the most prestigious storytelling conferences and festivals in the United States, Australia, and Ireland.…
Jennifer Hambrick
Poetry
A poet hailed for her “brilliant” imagery, “masterful” craftsmanship, and “uniquely musical voice,” Jennifer Hambrick is the six-time Pushcart Prize- and Best of the Net-nominated author of the free verse poetry collection In the High Weeds, winner of the Stevens Manuscript Award of the National Federation of State Poetry Societies; the haibun collection Joyride (Red Moon Press), winner of the Marianne Bluger Book Award from Haiku Canada; the collection of avant-garde haiku and short prose poems, a silence or two (Red Moon Press), acclaimed as “a stunning collection … destined to become a haiku classic;” and the free verse poetry collection Unscathed (NightBallet Press).…
Heidi Heacock is an artist based out of central Ohio, working primarily as an acrylic, encaustic and mixed-media painter. She has nine years experience teaching art in public schools and 15+ years experience as a working artist. Having grown up on a 7th generation farm, she draws inspiration from landscapes, nature, found objects, and mixed- media. As a child, Heidi would often visit her grandmother, who was a big influence in encouraging her love of the arts. She would praise her creative efforts, buy her supplies, and take her to classes, making Heidi’s beginning experiences with art-making peaceful and therapeutic.…
