Sara Wheeler has worked with children for over 15 years. She started working with children in Michigan with the Birmingham Autistic Music program. She has taught music in Japan in Kamakura and in Boston at the Cambridge Montessori School and the Newman School. Sara studied music at Berklee College of Music in Boston with her focus being songwriting and music education. She has produced and recorded five original adult contemporary folk/pop CD's and has toured all over the world playing music at festivals and schools. Sara has lived in Boston, Japan and Switzerland.
Sara's Instruments - Trumpet, Guitar, Percussion, Voice and Piano. She is sponsored by Taylor Guitars, Elixir Strings, and Ernie Ball.
Awards - Massachusetts Cultural Council Creative Teacher Partner 2005, NACA College Coffeehouse Performer of the Year Finalist 2000, Boston Music Award Nomination for Best Folk Rock Band 1999, Acoustic Underground Finalist 1995, Berklee College of Music Scholarship 1987 - 1991
Sara's Beliefs - Sara believes strongly in music education because it makes for a well balanced person and brings joy to ones life and to the world. Children are like sponges - in the early stages of development children are taking in so much information and building synapses in their brains. This is a very important time to introduce them to new ideas and sounds. It is proven that music helps organize the brain and increases children's ability in math and language.
Heather Smist
Heather Smist is currently doing her final internship to be a incensed Music Therapist with a minor in Psychology. She did her Music Therapy studies at Berklee College of music. She has years of experience working with children in childcare and most recently as an intern music therapist at the Franciscan Hospital for Children’s medical daycare. Before attending Berklee Heather completed 2 years of classical performance studies at The Boston Conservatory. She has been honored to be a scholarship recipient and has had the opportunity to meet and work with visiting artists such as Rhiannon, Sanford Sylvan, and Janis Ian. Heather has also been featured in several Berklee performances. Since moving to Boston she has completed extensive studies in performance and songwriting. Heather recently completed her 200 hr yoga teacher training as a scholarship recipient at the world-renowned Kripalu Center, and currently teaches private yoga instruction in the Boston area. She is currently working towards offering a Yoga for Singers workshop and in the future hopes to explore the possibilities for including wholistic and artistic therapies in psychotherapy programs.
Heather’s instruments: voice, guitar, piano, clarinet, and saxaphone
Mariana Iranzi
Mariana is a native from Buenos Aires, Argentina. She inherited the passion for music at an early age thanks to her Great Grandfather Julio De Caro, a famous Tango violinist, composer and orchestrator. On his antique piano, Mariana started to experiment the first connection with sounds and creativity. After attending Orff music classes and choir at the Collegium Musicum, she commenced her piano studies with Paula Gainza and continued with Alina Gandini at TADEMUS and Abel Rogantini at SADEM later on. But in the year 1998, she was deeply driven by the sounds of rock music and decided to try the electric bass. Mariana started her studies with Roberto Moreno at EFIMUS and continued at ITMC (Instituto Tecnológico de Música Contemporánea) where she studied with Marcelo Vaccaro, Eduardo Muñoz, Andrés Dulcet, Ernesto Jodos, Guillermo Klein, Adrian Birlis and Juancho Farias Gomez, among others. After 3 years, Mariana graduated and received her diploma in performance and traveled to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music. During her years at Berklee Mariana studied with John Repucci, Anthony Vitti, Fernando Huergo and Oscar Stagnaro and graduated with a Bachelors Degree in Professional Music (education and performance) in 2005.
Since then, she has performed live in MA, NY, VT, WV, IL and AR and recorded many albums with different projects. Mariana is also an active music educator and children's music composer and performer. She has taught music classes in high school, private lessons for bass, guitar and piano, ensembles and children’s music classes since 1998.
She leads her own music group for children where she sings, plays guitar, bass and percussion and will be releasing her debut album in Spring 2009.
Mariana's Instruments - Bass, Voice, Guitar and Percussion
Tommy Dempsey
Tommy Dempsey is a multi-instrumentalist including drums guitar and piano. Tommy studied voice under renown vocal therapist Mark Baxter. Tommy has taught music class as a part of Baby Wiggle (Boston Center for the Arts), as well as at the Boston Children's Museum. Tommy has performed at festivals and libraries throughout the North East, singing, playing percussion and guitar as a member of the children's music group -Sara Wheeler's "Little Groove" band.
His energetic classes use a lot of percussion and call and response rhythm training using the voice and hands. Tommy believes that through music, children can learn both about structure, as well as freedom and individuality in a fun learning environment.
As a solo singer and songwriter, Tommy has released 3 CD's touring throughout Europe and Japan. He has just co-produced, and is about to release his first full length solo CD entitled "eleven : eleven "
Tommy's Instruments - Voice, Guitar, Piano and Drums
Erica Leigh
Erica Leigh is deeply passionate about working with children, teaching and performing. After years of experience both working in childcare and as a musician, she feels right at home putting the two together at Baby Wiggle!
She recently earned a degree in Songwriting from Berklee College of Music in Boston. While studying at the college she was chosen to work alongside John Mayer during his weeklong songwriting and production clinic. Erica has been recognized for her talent by well-known performance rights organizations such as ASCAP & SESAC with prestigious songwriting awards. She has sung in choirs backing up names like pop-country recording artist Jo Dee Messina and folk singer Judy Collins. She has also performed with the New England Conservatory of Music at distinguished venues such as Boston’s Symphony Hall and as a soloist at Boston’s legendary Hatch Shell.
Erica is also a private voice instructor, freelance artist and solo singer-songwriter, performing around the New England area. She is currently working on her first full-length album of original music.
Erica’s Instruments: Voice, Guitar, Piano
Marybeth Maes - New teacher - Bio coming soon
