Gretchen Williams , Piano/Kindermusik (MM Piano Accompanying, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, BA Music, Salem College) has performed as both a solo pianist and collaborator, and has enjoyed motivating and instructing piano students from ages five to seventy-five for over six years. Before coming to the School of Creative Arts, she was on the faculty at Centenary Academy for Music and Performing Arts and the Salem College Community Music School in Winston-Salem, NC. While at Salem, she received the Christian Gregor Music Scholarship and the President’s Prize in Music. She studied with well-known pianist Barbara Lister-Sink, and performed in her award-winning video on injury-preventive technique. Ms. Williams went on to study accompanying with renowned vocal coach Benton Hess at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her performance there included major chamber repertoire for cello, viola, and saxophone, as well as a variety of vocal repertoire. She has also worked with choirs, summer music festivals, and church worship teams, and has directed a children’s musical and contributed to an original Christian music recording.

Dave Berry, Violin, has an MM from the University of Connecticut and a BM from UMASS, where he graduated Cum Laude. Active as a performer, Dave performs regularly at Grace Chapel and is a free-lance musician in greater Boston. He has previously performed with the St. Louis Philharmonic, Thayer Symphony Orchestra, and Wellesley Symphony, and has participated in the Tanglewood Institute and the Sewanee Music Festival. In addition to the School of Creative Arts, he has taught at the Donovan Music Studios, Noble and Greenough School and Wayland and Arlington Public Schools.

Scott McKean, Guitar, received a BA in music from Gordon College in 1991. Scott has performed in both solo settings and in ensemble performances. The ensemble performances have included guitar duo, trio, and quartet ensembles as well as guitar/flute combos. Scott has also played electric guitar with the Blazers Jazz Band, located in Framingham. In the town of Natick, Scott maintains a private teaching studio in addition to offering guitar instruction through the School of Creative Arts.

Benedict Petrucci, Woodwinds, studied arranging-composing and instrumental performance at the Berklee School of Music. He studied privately with many notable musicians including Mr. James Forte, noted contemporary classical composer; Mr. Atilio Poto, clarinetist and conductor with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the BSO, as well as faculty member of the Boston Conservatory of Music; and Mr. Joseph Viola, chairman of the woodwind department of Berklee. A member of the American Federation of Musicians, he has performed nationally and internationally with such notable acts as Peaches and Herb, The Drifters, and The Shirelles and was associated with “Steve Colt and the Forty-Fives,” an RCA music recording group. He was the featured soloist on tenor sax with “The Hal MacIntire Jr. Orchestra”; arranger and featured soloist on clarinet with the “Gene Krupa Orchestra”; arranged music for Henny Youngman which was performed on the “Jerry Lewis Telethon”; and was lead alto saxophone and clarinet soloist with the Continental Swing Band. In 2001 Petrucci Music Service was written up in the Henry Mancini Gala Musicale Journal in Hollywood. A professional musician for 47 years, Mr. Petrucci’s teaching career spans over 45 years and includes many Massachusetts public schools and private institutions including Lexington Christian Academy. He is currently a faculty member of SCA and is with The Evangelical Baptist Church of Newton (MA) Music Ministry.

Margaret Ahn, Piano, studied piano at the Juilliard School and the Manhattan School of Music. She has made recital appearances throughout the United States, as well as Japan, Korea, Austria, Hong Kong, and Switzerland. She has performed as guest artist on Japanese and Korean radio and television, and was invited to perform as a Korean delegate at the Asian Music Festival. She was subsequently invited to give a full length recital that was broadcast by the Hong Kong classical radio station. Her concerto appearances include those with the Seattle Symphony and the Juilliard Orchestra. She has been a first prize winner of many prestigious competitions in Souh East Asia, including the Ewha Kyung-Hyang and YeWon Competitions. In the U.S., she won the Arnold Bullock National Competition and was a finalist at the Ima Hogg International.

Dorothy Youells Allen, Flute, finished her Masters Degree program at the New England Conservatory, studying privately with Doriot Anthony Dwyer. She served as alternate flutist for the faculty wood-wind quintet for a national convention. At Interlochen National Music Camp, she was principal flute in the orchestra, soloist for the new composers club, and Honors Concert Soloist winner of the wind division in the Concerto Competition. The same performance honor came with the Flint, Michigan Symphony Competition. Her solo appearances include the Springfield, MO. Symphony, the Knoxville Symphony, the University of Tennessee Orchestra , the Civic Symphony of Ypsilanti, MI, and the University-Civic Symphony of Northeastern University. Dorothy has been featured as soloist at conventions, has written and played many original arrangements, completed (and had performed) commissioned works, played many guest soloist recitals across the U.S., worked as a recording studio artist, played in several orchestras, and regularly played for churches. She was nominated for the 1989 International Who’s Who of Musicians. More recently, she has served as a “resident soloist/accompanist” on flute for the PALS Children’s Chorus for 6 years. Currently, she teaches flute, piano, and voice at her home studio, and is on the music faculties of Lexington Christian Academy and SCA.

Patricia Anthony, Flute/Kindermusik, received her Bachelor’s Degree from the Eastman School of Music and her Master’s from the Boston University School of the Arts. She has performed as a concert soloist and principal flutist with the Brookline Symphony Orchestra, New Life Symphony, and the New Life Chamber Symphony. She also free-lances throughout New England with various ensembles, including Ardith and Anthony and the Portland Trio. She also performs with The Anthony Duo with her husband Eric, who is a distinguished free-lance artist and solo guitarist for the Harvard Club of Boston, and the Tasca Restaurant. Ms. Anthony teaches flute and Kindermusik for SCA, and has also taught at the Suzuki School of Newton; as part of the Wellesley, Lincoln, and Weston Public Schools Extension Programs; and at The Home for Little Wanderers.

Sara Wyse-Wenger, mezzo-soprano/Kindermusik, holds a Master of Music in Vocal Performance from New England Conservatory. She has taught voice for many years and performed many solo recitals and oratorios. She was recently soloist for Acts from the Heart production of Suddenly On Christmas Eve at the Eleanor Welch Casey Theatre at Regis College. Sara's professional opera roles include Nicholas in Tales of Hoffman and Orpheus in Gluck's Orpheus and Euridice. She is currently soloist/section leader at Payson Park United Church of Christ in Belmont, and has also sung professionally in other church choirs such as Old South Church in Copley Square, Church of the Redeemer in Chestnut Hill, and 1st and 2nd Church Unitarian in Back Bay. Sara is co-founder and director of a 130-voice children's chorus of 3rd through 5th graders at the Joyce Kilmer Elementary School in West Roxbury, with performances twice a year at a local retirement village and at the school. Since 1993 she has been a member of the Cantata Singers, a premier Boston chorus, singing under director David Hoose and composer/director John Harbison. She appears frequently as soloist in the Cantata Singers Chamber Series. She has been Coordinator since 1997 of the Cantata Singers' educational program “Classroom Cantatas,” a song-writing and singing program in Boston Public Schools in Roxbury. Sara has taught Kindermusik for 8 years with the School of Creative Arts, and has been Coordinator of its Kindermusik program for the past 5 years. She teaches traditional classroom Kindermusik and has also developed ongoing multi-generational Kindermusik classes in healthcare facilities and retirement homes. 

Acts from the Heart is a company of actors and musicians from professional and community theatre backgrounds who are dedicated to presenting heartfelt, entertaining, humorous, and
inspirational plays, musicals, and revues.