Board of Directors

Lea Maitlen – Board President

Lea Coppoletta Maitlen, a classically trained vocalist, holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a Master of Music degree from Belmont University.  She is a founding member of Nashville’s Portara Ensemble. Maitlen is a specialist in contemporary vocal music and has performed the Tennessee premieres of Pulitzer Prizewinning composer Caroline Shaw’s Cantico delle creature, Richard Danielpour’s Portraits, and the soprano in David Lang’s Pulitzer Prizewinning Little Match Girl Passion.  

As the Senior Marketing Manager of the Naxos of America marketing team until 2012, Maitlen produced several commercially released recording series and led various successful campaigns to launch new classical music CD recordings into the American market. Her critical successes include spearheading the American releases of ALIAS Chamber Ensemble’s Grammy nominated Hilos: Chamber Music of Gabriela Lena Frank, James Whitbourne’s Luminosity (performed by Commotio), the Elora Festival Singers’ Grammy nominated recording of the music of Eric Whitacre, and the King’s Singers acclaimed Pater Noster CD recording, in which she played an integral A&R and producer role. 

Maitlen served as the Executive Director of Portara Ensemble from 2011-2016, during which the ensemble released the critically acclaimed Choral Hymns of the Christian Faith CD recording and Amorisms: Chamber Music of Paul Moravec (featuring a World Premiere commission undertaken in partnership with the Nashville Ballet and ALIAS Chamber Ensemble).  Maitlen also served as the Executive Director for the GRAMMY nominated ALIAS Chamber Ensemble from 2016-2018.  During this time she was the creative force behind the concept of the group’s CD release, Rhythms, Rivers, and Roads.  A trained Montessori teacher, Maitlen spearheaded several innovative educational outreach programs during her time with ALIAS, including a school program focused on music by immigrant composers and a STEAM program which tied music inspired by nature to an exploration of the world around us.

Most recently, Maitlen served as Director of Marketing, PR, and Engagement with Nashville Opera, where she focused on growing creative partnerships within the Nashville community to bring opera to a wider, more diverse audience.  Since she joined Nashville Opera in 2018, Maitlen has undertaken partnerships with Opera on Tap, the Nashville Film Festival, the Frist Art Museum, Tennessee State University, and the Tennessee State Museum.  She is delighted to bring her experience with and passion for classical music to bear to grow the love of the art form in Middle Tennessee.

Kelly Christie — Vice President

Kelly Christie is a native of Toronto, Canada, and a graduate of York University. She spent her entire career in higher education administration, retiring in 2019 as Assistant Dean of Academic Programs and Student Life at the Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University. 

Since retirement, she has remained deeply engaged in nonprofit leadership and community service. She has served on the boards of The Vanderbilt Community Chorus, Vox Humana and Vox Grata Women’s Choir, where she also held the role of Chair. She is thrilled to return to the Vox Grata board and continue her lifelong love of music and service. 

Currently, Kelly serves as Board Chair of Nations Ministry Center, which supports Nashville’s refugee community. She also serves on the boards of UKirk Nashville (Presbyterian Campus Ministries) and the Whitworth Homeowners Association, and volunteers with Habitat for Humanity, Room in the Inn, and Westminster’s Youth Program. An active elder at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Kelly chairs the Benevolence Committee and serves on both the Generosity and Music Committees. 

In addition to singing alto in Vox Grata, Kelly has been a member of Westminster’s Adult Choir for over 20 years. She also plays handbells in two ensembles at Westminster. 

Kelly and her husband Bill cherish their 13 nieces and nephews and 17 great-nieces and great-nephews, making frequent trips to Canada for hugs and laughter. They enjoy traveling and finding new adventures together—and back home, they’re often out walking or cozying up with their two Gaelic-named cats, Kayleigh and Keira.

Karen Weir – Secretary

Karen Weir worked with customers in the contact center industry for twenty-five years before her retirement in 2000.  She was a principal at Carrefour Research, a consulting and software development firm, from its inception.  Prior to Carrefour Research, Ms. Weir worked in operations management in the call center industry, most recently as Vice-President for Implementation and Training at TCS Management Group.

Ms. Weir holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Davidson College, where she was actively involved in the theatre department and newly formed Women’s Chorus.  She also holds an MBA from Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management with a concentration in Operations Management.

Ms. Weir’s volunteer interests include singing and ringing handbells at Westminster Presbyterian Church, as well as singing with Vox Grata. She has served on the Board at Outlook Nashville, as the Nashville Chapter President of the Davidson College Alumni Association and currently serves on the Board of Nations Ministry Center for Refugees.

Nita Smith

Dr. Nita Smith is a Nashville native and a retired 33-year veteran of K-12 music education with Metro Nashville Public Schools. For the last 14 years of her career, she taught vocal, piano, and general music at Isaiah T. Creswell Middle Magnet School of the Visual & Performing Arts. She developed an award-winning choral program where her students performed at choral festivals and for local, civic, and national teacher conferences. She has served as the chair of the fine arts department, a faculty mentor, and cooperating teacher for pre-service music education majors from universities in the greater Nashville area and the Middle Tennessee region. She has facilitated professional development workshops that focus on music education through the lens of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Social and Emotional Learning, and Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. 

Dr. Smith holds a B.S. degree in Music Education from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, a M.A.Ed. degree in Music Education and an Ed.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from Tennessee State University. In addition to her work with middle school students, she has taught vocal methods courses as an adjunct professor in the Department of Music at Tennessee State University. Her civic and community volunteer work includes serving as a curriculum consultant for the Country Music Hall of Fame’s Words & Music Curriculum and the National Museum of African American Music (NMAAM). She serves on the advisory board for Educator’s Cooperative and is the Artistic Director of MET Singers Youth Community Choir of Choral Arts Link, Inc.

Dr. Smith is a three-time Country Music Association Music Teacher of Excellence awardee, having received the Carol Crittenden Advocacy in Music award (2020), Harry T. Burleigh Civic Champion Award (2023), the Tennessee Arts Academy Teacher Hero Award (2022), the Blue Ribbon Teacher Award (2019), and the MNPS Teacher of the Year honors at both Hillsboro High School and Creswell Middle. Grants awarded under her tenure include Nashville Barber Shop Society’s Music Makes a Difference Grant,  Music and the Brain Piano Grant, CMA private tutoring grant, Notes for Education grant, and the VH-1 Save the Music Foundation Keys & Kids Grant.

Sandra Shepherd

Sandra Shepherd serves as Associate Pastor for Christian Discipleship at Brenthaven Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Brentwood. When she and her husband Scott lived in rural northeast Alabama, Sandra taught in public school, performed in musicals with a town-and-gown theater, and sang in the church choir. Nashville has been home since 2011, and although she sings with the church choir here, Sandra says she always needs more singing, so she jumped at the chance to join Vox Grata in 2018. She claims it as one of her best decisions to be part of this group of amazing women singing quality music and benefitting worthy causes.

Dusty Rose Miller

Dusty Rose Miller is a researcher, gardener, writer, speaker, singer, and dancer. She works as an Assistant Research Professor at Vanderbilt University where she studies the chemical composition of Psilocybe mushrooms. Her postdoctoral work under the direction of Prof. David E. Cliffel focused on the effects of pesticides on the brain. Her graduate work at the University of California, Santa Barbara investigated natural chemical adhesives and load-bearing structures using Mytilus californianus as a model organism.  She lives on a 10-acre homestead just outside of Nashville, TN where she practices biodynamic farming and sacred reciprocity with the land and its many inhabitants. Important initiatives for Dusty include those relating to the health and well being of earth including clean water, food, and air as well as the health and well being of our society and the individual heart, mind, and body. Her interest in music began in a moment of deep gratitude when she heard ‘If you are grateful, sing” from the great beyond. She joined the board of Vox Grata in 2024 to honor the power of voice and song as an agent of change. She believes that life is a prayer and that presence is a portal to receiving all that the soul came here to know.

Susan Carey

Susan Carey is a native Tennessean and lifelong choir participant.  She grew up in East Tennessee where her mother directed the choir at their small, rural Presbyterian church.  Susan was excited to join the church’s adult choir in the 5^th grade and especially to sing alto since she could read music and enjoyed harmonizing.  Susan studied voice and sang in church and school choirs in high school and college and moved to Nashville in 1986 to attend law school at Vanderbilt University.  After graduation, she was in private practice for 20 years and has spent ten years at HCA.  She has served as president of the Carson-Newman University Alumni Board and of the Nashville Bar Association YLD.  She is a member of the adult choir and college of elders at Westminster Presbyterian Church where she has served as Moderator of Presbyterian Women, Clerk of Session and a Bible study leader.  She is married to Scott Carey; they have two adult sons, Sam and Jack, as well as two kittens, Sal and Pablo.

Terry Quillen

Terry Quillen is a native Nashvillian, a graduate of Vanderbilt University, and a veteran journalist and communicator. She has shown a lifelong commitment to telling the stories of our community and guiding others in finding their own voices.

Terry enjoyed a career at The Tennessean of more than 30 years, most of it as an opinion editor. She provided readers with content that analyzed the hows and whys of local, national, and international news and included columnists who spanned the political spectrum. Over the years, Terry met with scores of public officials — local, state, and federal — as a member of the editorial board, which decides the newspaper’s editorial stands and political endorsements.

As the newspaper industry began to contract, Terry took a buyout and became a communications advisor. Notable among her clients were the Pew Charitable Trust and the Forward.us initiative supporting DACA protection for young immigrants. She also served as public information officer for elected officials at the state and Metro levels.

Since retiring from government, Terry has had the honor of working as Administrative and Communications Coordinator for Second Presbyterian Church, a Nashville congregation known for its commitment to “the radically inclusive call of Jesus.”

Terry and her husband, Mike Hines, live on a wooded ridge in Cheatham County with their three well-loved rescue dogs. Terry and Mike like to travel, mostly to France, where Terry studied and lived for a time, and to Los Angeles, where her daughter and son-in-law, Olivia and J.R. Lind, and granddaughter, Zoë, live. Terry and Mike are relentless Nashville Predators fans.

Pam Schneller

Pam Schneller has been actively involved in choral music as singer, conductor, and aficionado since she fell in love with conducting as a ninth grader. A graduate of the University of Illinois and Scarritt Graduate School, she served church choirs in Illinois and Indiana, before settling down with her husband Roland in Nashville.  As a choral director, she is the founder of five of the nine choirs at Blair School of Music, including the Vanderbilt Community Chorus. Currently, she is the Senior Associate Dean of Blair Academy, the 800-student pre-college and adult program at Blair, and teaches conducting in the collegiate program. Passionate about creating musical opportunities for children and youth, Pam is a member of the Nashville Symphony Accelerando Program Advisory Board, the NSO Education and Community Engagement Committee, and the Richmond Symphony School of Music Advisory Board.

Rosie Smith

Rosie Smith is a Nashville native who has contributed to Nashville’s vast healthcare workforce since she graduated from the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga in 2013. Her current role is managing clients of the workforce development solutions of HealthStream, Inc. During her career, she’s been certified to teach many professional development workshops and has used her background and degree in Psychology to help support the growth of her peers in every aspect of her professional life. Rosie’s affinity for music comes from her father who taught himself to read music singing in his church choir at the ripe age of 8 years old. From elementary school through high school, Rosie participated in school choirs and was able to travel on tour with St. Cecilia Academy in 2007 and 2010. Her love for music continued after college when she was able to join Vox Grata as an Alto 1 in Fall 2016. Through this group, she continues to be amazed by the camaraderie and joy that singing brings.

Becky Yates

Jeanette MacCallum – Ex Officio, Founder & Artistic Director

Jeanette MacCallum is the Director of Music Ministries at Second Presbyterian Church in Nashville, TN and founder and Artistic Director of Vox Grata, a Nashville community women’s choir. Previously she served as an Adjunct Professor in music theory and history at Belmont and Lipscomb Universities. In addition, she served as the Director of Choral Activities at Saint Cecilia Academy in Nashville, TN, from 2002 to 2012, where she conducted various ensembles and taught AP Music Theory. During her time at St. Cecilia, the Advanced Choir received superior ratings at all regional and state adjudication festivals in which it participated. In addition, the St. Cecilia Advanced Choir performed at ACDA and TMEA state conferences. Mrs. MacCallum led the St. Cecilia Choir on performance tours to Carnegie Hall, Canada and Italy. In 2007, the Saint Cecilia Choir performed by invitation at the Ospedale della Pietà and the Ospedale dei Derelitti in Venice. Her students earned positions in numerous All State and ACDA Honor Choirs.

A native of Princeton, New Jersey, Mrs. MacCallum’s passion for choral music began as a member of the distinguished Princeton High School Choir. She received her musical education at the Eastman School of Music and Belmont University, and received the Master of Church Music degree from Belmont. A singer, pianist and conductor, Mrs. MacCallum has directed choirs at the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University, as well as at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Nashville, TN. She is the past president of the Tennessee chapter of the American Choral Directors Association. Jeanette is the author of “The Sacred Choral Works of the Venetian Ospedali,” published by GIA in “Conducting Women’s Choirs: Strategies for Success,” Debra Spurgeon, Editor and Compiler. (2012)