BOARD OF DIRECTORS
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Ayo R. Alston-Moore, Esq. joined Becker Glynn in 2021 as an associate in the litigation practice group. Her practice includes a wide variety of complex commercial litigation, employment, and arbitration matters. Her diverse skillset and experience span all phases of the trial process, including coordinating complex discovery, preparing witnesses, taking and defending depositions, and motion practice, as well as first-chairing mediations, negotiations, and settlements.
Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Alston-Moore worked at a plaintiff’s rights boutique where she focused on art law, employment discrimination, real estate, and commercial matters. She also worked as an attorney for a New York City agency, where she gained extensive trial experience handling child abuse and neglect matters. After law school, Ms. Alston-Moore clerked for Judge Andrea G. Carter of the New Jersey Superior Court.
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Leah Bowden is a drummer, percussionist and educator based between Los Angeles and New York City. She specializes in popular music, world music, contemporary jazz, and chamber music. She performs and tours throughout the United States, Mexico, Europe, and the United Kingdom, with an array of musical projects.
Leah is a founding member of Baby Bushka, a bespoke eight-woman band that performs theatrical reinterpretations of Kate Bush's music, and is a key collaborator on Intersection, a site-specific interdisciplinary project directed by the painter Iva Gueorguieva in Los Angeles. She is a member of The Forest, an experimental percussion quintet based in New York, with fellow musicians Lesley Mok, Andrew Drury, Michael Wimberly and Gustavo Aguilar.
Leah holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of California, San Diego, where she was a member of the resident percussion ensemble red fish blue fish, directed by Steven Schick. During her time as a graduate student, Leah served as the inaugural board president and drummer with The Voices of Our City Choir, an organization serving people experiencing homelessness in San Diego. She is the author of "Max Roach and M’Boom: Diasporic Soundings in American Percussion Music," and is the official archivist for M’Boom co-founder, Warren Smith.
A versatile arts educator, Leah has taught music classes, directed ensembles, and presented performance workshops at UC San Diego, CalArts, Tijuana Cultural Center, the Autonomous University of Baja California, the University of Washington, Amherst College, Bennington College and Springfield College, among others.
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Darrell Bridges is the Founder and Director of Arts and Education Continuum, Inc. (A&EC), a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation. His activities at A&EC include the development of multi-disciplinary educational services for students at all levels, along with partnerships with a number of other non-profits and businesses in the areas of arts, education and social services, and legacy preservation.
Darrell has been a highly committed music business professional for more than 20 years. Through A&EC, Darrell also provides management services to Craig Harris, Jay Rodriguez, Eddie Allen & Yayoi Ikawa.
Darrell’s in-the-trenches experiences have included a wide array of activities, including concert production, business administration, tour and stage management, publishing, photography, studio management, and other tasks that spring up in day-to-day music business endeavors. He has produced shows at a variety of New York area clubs and larger venues like Symphony Space, La Guardia Community College, Grand Central Station (Music in Motion) and Hudson River Museum. Most recently the weekly Friday night Harlem Jazz Series located at Mount Morris Ascension Presbyterian Church, West 122nd Street, Harlem, NYC
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Dr. Terry Jenoure, musician, writer, visual artist, educator was born and raised in the South Bronx into a Puerto Rican and Jamaican family. The composer, violinist & vocalist has performed and lectured throughout five continents. Her music has earned numerous grants, most recently from New England Foundation for the Arts (2022), Massachusetts Cultural Council (2021), and South Arts Jazz Road Creative Residencies (2021). A self-taught visual artist, Terry has exhibited internationally. As an academic, her writing has been published extensively. Her book NAVIGATORS: African American Musicians, Dancers, and Visual Artists in Academe (SUNY Press) as well as articles and essays are referenced by over forty international scholars. Holding Masters and Doctoral degrees in Education, Terry was an adjunct faculty member at Lesley University for eighteen years, while also serving as Director of Augusta Savage Gallery (University of Massachusetts) for thirty years. She leads creative writing workshops online, and as an independent arts-based researcher has conducted trainings in South Africa, Mexico, India, Israel, Colombia.
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Michael Reinke is an ordained priest in the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire. Michael was born in Boston and moved with his parents to Royalston, Massachusetts (30 miles south of Keene), where his parents bought a small farm and adopted four additional children with mixed racial heritage. Michael attended Wesleyan University in Middletown, Ct, and Union Theological Seminary in NYC. Michael serves as the Executive Director for Lowell House and is the former Executive Director of the Nashua Soup Kitchen and Shelter. When not at church or at work, you will find him hiking, riding his bike or playing his banjo.
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Alissa Schwartz, MSW, PhD, Principal of Solid Fire Consulting, is an independent consultant who holds space for joy and possibility. Centered on strengthening mission-driven non-profits and organizations in the solidarity economy, Alissa supports communities that are passionate and pragmatic, grounded and yearning. Rooted in a racial, economic, and gender equity lens, Alissa draws upon multiple influences in her work, including complexity systems theory, theater directing, and experience in research and organizational behavior.
Alissa has over 25 years of experience in the non-profit sector. Current and prior clients (non-exhaustive list) include: Immigration Equality, William Caspar Graustein Memorial Foundation; 92nd Street YM-YWHA; Opportunity Agenda; and the United Nations.
Alissa is co-editor and chapter author of an issue of New Directions in Evaluation that is focused on the intersectionalities of evaluation and facilitation. She holds a PhD from Columbia University, an MSW from the University of Washington, and a BA from Wesleyan University.
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Ashera Schwartz is an artist and researcher based in Brooklyn, NY in unceded Lenapehoking. She is currently studying Urban Ecology in CUNY Baccalaureate for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies where she has recently received awards for her research on fossil fuel history in North Brooklyn, as well as experiments in ecological sound art. Ashera makes electroacoustic music/performance solo (“Allium”) and in collaborations such as Mossball, Bicycle Noise Creation Machine, and Tricycle. From 2018-2020 she drummed in Big Pity, independently releasing 3 records. She has also produced dozens of events with live music, political education, visual art, and ritual components, including some as part of Continuum Culture & Arts. Ashera has also been a Microhauler/Composter for BK Rot since 2021. Ashera hopes to use her work to support larger anti-colonial and anti-capitalist struggles.
OUR TEAM
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Andrew Drury is a drummer, improviser, composer, and bandleader as well as a presenter, producer, educator, pioneer of extended techniques for percussion, and co-founder and Director of Continuum Culture & Arts. Originally from the Seattle area, he studied with Ed Blackwell for nearly a decade, and lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Drury performs as a soloist, leads ensembles of all sizes, produces audio and video, and collaborates with adventurous musicians and artists in many contexts. He has performed in 30 countries and on nearly 80 recordings. As of June, 2024 he will have presented 200 concerts in his Soup & Sound music series in Brooklyn. He has given masterclasses in 20 universities on three continents, and has led over 1,500 community workshops in schools, prisons, museums, homeless shelters, shelters for battered women, with Kurdish refugees in Germany, on Indian reservations (including the Oneida Nation where he was artist-in-residence for six months in 2000), and in remote villages in Guatemala and Nicaragua. His work has received high praise from critics throughout his career.
Over the years he has had the pleasure of playing with great artists, well-known and obscure, including Christine Abdelnour, Kris Davis, Michel Doneda, Mark Dresser, Peter Evans, The Forest, Satoko Fujii, Charles Gayle, Wayne Horvitz, Earl Howard, Jason Kao Hwang, Howard Johnson, Eyvind Kang, Mazen Kerbaj, Ku-umba Frank Lacy, Ingrid Laubrock, James Brandon Lewis, Annea Lockwood, Alexis Marcelo, Myra Melford, Butch Morris, J. D. Parran, Tomeka Reid, Stephanie Richards, Roswell Rudd, Elliott Sharp, Wadada Leo Smith, and John Tchicai, to name a few.
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chai (he-they-she) is a conglomerate-media artist (clay, metal, wood, puppets, writing, sewing, wiring, vocalizing, organizing, dancing, sonifying, depicting, etc.), sound engineer, and human extraordinaire. He is from Brooklyn, and can be seen carrying large groceries, speakers, or riding on (a) wheel(s) of sorts (skateboard, unicycle, heelys, tricycle... ), or heard. She is a lover of feeling the texture of sounds on their eardrums, eating chocolate, and occasionally enjoying a scifi ___ . A maker of strange sounds, peculiar solutions, and pancakes, he will happily talk to you about his puppet show, "Y, & Everything"