Allison Boyd founded Metro Music Makers as a private Atlanta-based music studio offering in-home music lessons. She has been teaching since 1992 (sometimes as many as 78 students per week herself), with students ranging from 3 years of age to senior citizens, and those with special needs. In addition to overseeing a variety of instructors in the Metro Music Makers family, she is a board-certified Music Therapist licensed in the State of Georgia. Allison’s music therapy experience includes working in special needs classes, in private behavioral therapy and research with children diagnosed with autism, in music therapy and research with neonates, as a music therapist at a drug and alcohol rehab for teens, and as a music therapist in mental health settings working with adults diagnosed with a range of disorders including schizophrenia, PTSD, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety and dissociative disorders.

Originally from Easley, South Carolina, Allison attended the Greenville Fine Arts Center, and earned her Bachelor of Music in Music Therapy from Florida State University (cum laude). She also served a six-month internship at San Antonio State Hospital (a mental health institution). Allison pursued a career as a singer/songwriter after college, recording three EPs and one full-length album. While touring, she was hired by Mars Music, Inc. to implement the Babies Make Music program in the metro Atlanta area.

In addition, Allison was a finalist in the Greenville Symphony Orchestra Russian Music Festival Piano Competition in 1990 and a semifinalist in the Young Keyboard Artists Association International Piano Competition in 1990. She toured with the band Life As Mary from 2000-2003, including an exciting showcase with A&R exposure at the 2002 Atlanta Music Conference.

Allison’s flexibility working in diverse positions and environments gave her the training needed to begin Metro Music Makers in 2002. As parents learned about her music therapy background, she began to get requests for adaptive lessons for students who might not otherwise find success in traditional lessons Allison currently serves as the co-president of EO Atlanta’s Accelerator Program, a global entrepreneur organization whose mission is to help small business owners catapult their growth beyond $1M in revenue. Additionally, Allison is a member of the Music Teachers National Association, the Georgia Music Teachers Association, the North Fulton Music Teachers Association, and the Music Therapy Association of Georgia. Allison adjudicates events sponsored by the National Guild of Piano Teachers and the Georgia Federation of Music Clubs. Allison’s students have achieved many honors over the years. She has seen over 250 of her students make top marks in the National Piano Guild Auditions and National Federation of Music Clubs Festival since 2003.

Ben Sutherland is a composer, music technologist, performer, and educator
whose work and interests span a multitude of media and genres, including classical, popular, and experimental. His contemporary classical works have been performed by renowned ensembles including the Pacifica String Quartet, the Contemporary Chamber Players, and the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble.

His compositional, research, and performance interests find a nexus in his work with interactive computer music systems, and in particular, systems of musical gesture acquisition, analysis, and processing. He has presented at conferences including New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME), the Porto International Conference on Musical Gesture as Creative Interface, the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS), and the Symposium of Laptop Ensembles and Orchestras (SLEO), and he is one half of the interactive computer music duo, “The Machine is Neither…,” with Emma Hospelhorn.

Alongside these endeavors, Ben has also been involved with numerous projects in popular, "underground," and cross-cultural genres, maintaining connections to his “musical roots” as a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist, songwriter, and arranger. He holds a B.A. in Music from Oberlin College/ Conservatory and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Music Composition from the University of Chicago. Ben is currently the Chair of Audio Arts and Acoustics at Columbia College Chicago.