Leandra Merea Strope, Artistic and Executive Director

Leandra is a fifty-five-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, 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 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.

Stephenie Sanders, Director of Operations

Bio coming soon!

Makayla Graybeal, Community Coordinator

Makayla Graybeal (she/her) is a sophomore Psychology major at Central Chatham Community College. She is a former Sisters’ Voices singer and a former North Carolina Youth Tap Ensemble dancer.

Makayla has always loved music. Everyone in her family has played an instrument at some point in their life, or still currently. In Makayla’s free time, she enjoys writing poetry and stories, being outside, going on road trips, and seeing her friends. Makayla thanks Leandra for giving her this wonderful opportunity and cannot wait to get to know each sweet girl and their families.

Kristin Trangsrud, Accompanist

Born and raised on a farm in North Dakota, Kristin Trangsrud has memories of listening to her mom play the piano and then sitting down to pluck out the sounds she heard by ear. She began piano lessons in the second grade and expanded her music activities by playing the string and electric bass in her school concert, pep and jazz bands and college orchestra. Kristin graduated from Concordia College in Moorhead, MN with a BA in music performance. In North Carolina, Kristin has collaborated extensively with local soloists and church, community, and university choruses including UNC’s Carolina Choir, the Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, the Community Church of Chapel Hill, Unity Peace Church in Durham, and Sisters’ Voices. She collaborated for many years with the Occasional Trio, enjoying their mission of performing chamber music in retirement and nursing homes.

Kristin also serves on Sisters’ Voices Board of Directors and is the organization’s grant writer.  In addition to her music endeavors, Kristin served in the Peace Corps in Thailand, earned an MPH in Health Education/Health Behavior at UNC and worked in health communications for many years before retiring to focus on music and parenting her two wonderful daughters.

Singers

Sisters’ Voices members are girls who love to sing and who 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.

We welcome other singers who would love to join us! Our work is built on inclusion and cooperation, and we are better for having lots of different experiences, interests, and gifts among our singers.

Board of Directors

The Sisters’ Voices Board of Directors is the behind-the-scenes backbone of our organization.  They are responsible for 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:

• Jennifer Shen
• Kristin Trangsrud, Chair
• Kate Dealmeida
• Rajitha Bearden
• Sarah Fotheringham
• Leandra Merea Strope, President and Artistic Director

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 Director and Managing Director 
• 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 SingFling!, Winter Concert, and Spring Concert
• financial donation that is indicative of your strong support of Sisters’ Voices 
• connection with others about SV — talk about SV
• hands-on support of fundraising efforts and the work of committees