Leandra Merea Strope – Founder and Artistic Director
Leandra is a fifty-seven-year-old artist, teacher, mom, musician … early in her life she studied violin, piano, and guitar. In junior high she played flute and oboe. In high school she concentrated on flute and pursued flute through college at Meredith College. She sang in choirs and choruses for most of her life, started helping with children’s choirs when she was in high school, took on the direction of a children’s choir in college, and in graduate school at Yale and Indiana University she focused on choral music which had become her love. Since then, she has taught Pre-K through 12th grade music, worked at several churches, and taught at the Governor’s School of North Carolina – West for ten summers. She has also trained and worked as a Licensed Massage and Bodywork Therapist, learning more about the structure of the human body, movement, and breath. More recent influences on Leandra’s teaching have been her family (especially her daughter), the students and faculty at the Governors’ School of NC, students and parents of Sisters’ Voices, Montessori, Kodály, Jung, Lee, and Maslansky.
Fundamental to Leandra’s work with Sisters’ Voices is her belief in a woman’s right to self-determination, to govern her own body, to develop her own mind, and to seek happiness on her own terms. She believes that recovering from the sexist systems that govern today’s US society will require both that girls learn to realize their own power and that other individuals and society as a whole become prepared for women to be our powerful selves. So Leandra’s passion is working with girls, helping them develop vocal competence, explore new forms of expression, and know what it feels like to muster courage from deep inside and let their voices be heard.
Leandra lives in Chapel Hill with her family – four humans (all singers), and three dogs (two of whom sing).
Leandra’s small part in creating solutions to our national and global crises is to teach children how to sing, to teach them songs from all over the world, to help them listen to each other well and connect to each other, and to give them lots of opportunities to share their voices.
Kate DeAlmeida – PreSV and SV1 Leader
Kate DeAlmeida loves to sing and dance and to share that passion with her students. She is currently the lead teacher of the twos at University United Methodist Preschool in Chapel Hill where she has taught since 2016. Her training in the Musikgarten curriculum and her experience teaching it since 2013 for the Congregation at Duke Chapel enables her to weave music and creative movement together. Kate’s teaching philosophy, developed from her two degrees from Duke University, is grounded in child-centered play. Additional teaching experience includes teaching at Jordan High School for five years, Chapel Hill Social Dance for fifth and sixth graders for fourteen years, the NC Museum of Life and Science, and the Triangle Youth Ballet. Both of her children have sung with Sisters’ Voices since 2018.
Rachel Bowman-Abdi – SV2 and SV3 Leader
Rachel has always loved singing. Her earliest musical memory is being held by her father and plastering her ear against his chest so she could immerse herself in the vibrations made by his bass voice. She sang with family and in church from a very young age, and she found a musical home in the Shenandoah Valley Children’s Choir as a middle and high school student. At Eastern Mennonite University, she combined her love of music with her love of words by majoring in both music (Voice Performance) and English.
Rachel went on to get a Master of Music in Vocal Performance at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, as well as a PhD in English (Rhetoric and Composition). She taught private voice lessons and Musikgarten for about three years at St. Mary’s Music Academy in High Point, NC, also singing in the professional chorus Bel Canto Company. She then taught writing and rhetoric courses at UNCG for six years before taking time to focus on her young children and her family life. In addition to teaching with Sisters’ Voices, Rachel teaches a few private voice lessons, sings in Women’s Voices Chorus and chairs WVC’s Inclusion and Outreach Committee. She also volunteers at Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, working mainly with first through fifth graders.
Brandon Long – Collaborative Pianist
Brandon Long has been at the piano for as long as he can remember. He first accompanied school choirs and ensembles in his hometown of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, and later became a four-year singer and accompanist for the Juniata College Concert Choir, where he toured internationally. Since graduating in 2007, he has continued to create rehearsal tracks for the choir each semester.
After moving to North Carolina in 2010, Brandon has worked with local community choirs, provided audition support for PlayMakers Repertory Company at UNC-Chapel Hill, and currently serves as backup pianist for Mother Teresa Catholic Church in Cary. He also performs regularly as a solo pianist in the Triangle. In addition to his musical work, Brandon previously managed Blue Hill Event Center at Extraordinary Ventures, a Chapel Hill nonprofit that provides meaningful employment for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. He lives in Chapel Hill with his wife, a school psychologist in Alamance County.
Brandon is excited to join Sisters’ Voices and to support both the mission of the program and the growth of every singer.
Donna Crisp, Administrator
Donna has worn many job hats over the years of her career – paid positions such as Office Manager, Education Manager for Early Head Start, Mortgage Processor – and unpaid positions such as Mom, Girl Scout Leader, Dog Mom, and Board Chair of the Durham Community Chorale. Through all of the different phases of life, music and singing have been a constant. When the Sisters’ Voices Administrator position became available, it seemed like a natural fit for many of the parts of her life to come together.
After growing up in Chapel Hill, Donna moved to Durham to raise her two daughters, and now lives in Graham with her husband Roy, dad Jim, and dachshund/spaniel mix, Cupid. She sings in the Durham Community Chorale, loves to hike, and spends as much time as possible with family, especially her grandson in western NC.
Singers
Sisters’ Voices members love to sing and have chosen to join forces and raise our voices together. We come from schools in Chatham, Orange, Durham, Wake, and Alamance counties – public, charter, independent, and homeschools. We enjoy language and math, playing video games and riding horses, writing stories and playing hopscotch, discussing politics and solving hard problems … and all of us love to sing.
Sisters’ Voices welcomes new friends who also love to sing! Our work is built on inclusion and cooperation, and our community is stronger for having lots of different experiences, interests, and gifts among the singers.
Board of Directors
The Sisters’ Voices Board of Directors is the behind-the-scenes backbone of our organization. This group is responsible for, among other things, the fiscal health and security of the Sisters’ Voices, Inc. organization. Board members, all volunteers, also spearhead projects related to fundraising and community development.
Current Board members:
- Kate DeAlmeida, Chair
- Kelly Peak, Secretary
- Jennifer Shen, Treasurer
- Alexandra Figueroa, at large
- Leandra Merea Strope, Artistic Director, ex officio
These are the responsibilities of the Sisters’ Voices Board of Directors:
- to protect the Sisters’ Voices Mission, Vision, and Values
- to act as Sisters’ Voices legal fiduciary – acting legally on behalf of SV
- to hire, supervise, and fire the Artistic and Executive Directors
- to set an annual budget, build the organization’s resources, and ensure that Sisters’ Voices has the resources it needs to thrive
Expectations of individual board members include:
- presence at Board meetings
- presence at Board Orientation Retreat annually
- follow-through and communication between Board meetings
- presence at Sisters’ Voices events, especially public performance
- financial donation that is indicative of your strong support of Sisters’ Voices
- connection with others about SV — talk positively about SV
- hands-on support of fundraising efforts and the work of committees
We are in search of new Directors for our Board! If you are interested in being nominated to serve on the Sisters’ Voices Board of Directors, please fill out this application or reach out to Kate DeAlmeida (kate@sistersvoices.org), Chair of the Board. Thank you!
