About Us
Our Approach
Voices Rock welcomes everyone, whether you’re a seasoned singer or have never performed in your life and finally want to take the leap.
Rehearsal cycles run for ten weeks and culminate in a performance at the end of the session.
Voices Rock has several locations to choose from! Check out our Choirs page for locations, dates and times.
Can’t attend every rehearsal? No problem! We provide recordings for you to listen to at your convenience. Once you are a member and the session begins, you will receive access to our Choir Genius portal where you will find everything you need for fun and successful session!
The goal of Voices Rock is to build community, and we provide several social opportunities outside of rehearsal for our fantastic members to get to know each other. We also strive to help our community through charity and outreach performances each year.
Reasons to Join
- You love to sing!
- It’s yoga for the brain
- You get to meet new people
- You’ll learn more about music
- We create and build community
- We get to do something meaningful together
- Everyone has a voice and a right to sing!
- Music is good for the soul.
- It’s so much fun!
Interested in Voices Rock? Stay in touch!
Before You Come:
- Stay up-to-date with our email communications
- Listen to the recordings of our current songs on Dropbox!
- Leave all your cares at the door and get ready to sing your heart out!
What To Bring:
- Feel free to bring you beverage of choice and share if you wish!
- Help the planet – bring a reusable cup!
- A pencil and/or highlighter
- You might want a binder or folder to keep your music organized
Meet The Team
Jill Teas
Founder & Artistic Director
Musical and Creative Director Jill taught choral and general music for 26 years in Atlanta and Denver where she directed multiple award-winning choirs. In Denver, Jill taught music at Stanley British Primary school for 11 years where she directed 150 children in her 3-4-5 choir as well as vocal ensembles in the middle school. She has co-directed multiple musical theatre productions at Stanley as well as the Kent Denver summer arts program. She brings tremendous energy and enthusiasm to all of her musical direction and performances. Jill spent two years with the international performing group, Up With People, including a year as the vocal coach on their staff. Jill has been singing professionally in Athens and Atlanta, Georgia and throughout Denver for three decades. As the co-founder and musical director of Voices Rock, Jill has built and led our community of 400+ members and directs the Voices Rock Flagship choir at the Denver JCC and our smaller outreach group, Reverb. With performances from Red Rocks to Ted Talks, she has established herself as one of the premier choir directors in the area. Jill holds a degree in music education/voice concentration from the University of Georgia.
Clara Shelton
Executive Director
Clara Shelton joined Voices Rock in its second session and was hooked from the start. She became the Executive Director in 2025. Prior to Voices Rock, Clara held marketing and communications roles with Colorado Public Radio and Concentric Ag. A lifelong musician, Clara started formal Suzuki violin training at age 5, played with youth symphonies in Europe and the U.S., and sang in an a cappella group at Pomona College, from which she graduated with a degree in American Studies. In her free time, Clara serves as a National Ambassador with MADD, begins too many craft projects, and occasionally hosts a Taylor Swift podcast. She credits Voices Rock with helping her find her people when she moved to Denver, and she believes strongly in the power of groups like this to help strengthen our communities through music, friendship and laughter.
Marla McClure
Choir Director in Denver (Highlands)
Marla McClure is a choir director, voice teacher, actor, singer, and ballroom dance instructor. Originally from Los Angeles, CA, she spent the last 12 years in New York City, where she taught high school music and co-directed a community rock choir, Unsettled Scores. An avid musical theater lover, Marla has performed in numerous shows, including Gypsy, Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Last 5 Years, and I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change. She has an Advanced Certificate in Music Education from Brooklyn College and a BA in Psychology from Pomona College.
Choir has been one of the great loves of Marla’s life… it was the place where she really found her artistic voice and her sense of community in NYC. Since moving to Denver, she’s been so grateful to find a new choir family in Voices Rock! She loves fostering that same sense of community with her singers in the Highlands area.
Brian Shimamoto
Choir Director in Denver (Central Park) and Louisville
Brian caught the musical bug at age 10 when he was cast in the title role of a local community theatre production of “Oliver!” and music has been a part of his life ever since. His musical roots were always closely tied to the communities he’s been part of from local children’s theatre to high school chorus and show choir. In college, he was introduced to contemporary a cappella ensembles and he and some friends formed the Deltones, a University of Delaware co-ed a cappella group founded on the idea of “friends first, singers second.” That philosophy paid off and the group recently celebrated 35 years on campus and competed on NBC’s “The Sing Off” going up against Denver’s own “Urban Method” and a little 5-member group known as “Pentatonix.” After college, Brian travelled with Up With People where he first met Voices Rock director, Jill Teas and served as her vocal intern while on the road. He went on to work as a vocal director and show manager, traveling throughout the United States and Europe for five years.
Brian and his family have called Colorado home since 2007 and he loves jamming out with Voices Rock in his Central Park neighborhood.
Kent Lemburg
Choir Director in Denver (Cap Hill), Accompanist for Reverb and Denver (Central Park)
Originally from Golden, Colorado, Kent earned a bachelor’s degree in music and theater performance from CU Boulder. His diverse background spans international touring with the educational program Up With People, performing and living in New York City, and working with the historic Country Dinner Playhouse. Kent has also contributed to hand-bell ringing with the Rocky Mountain Ringers and held various music roles across multiple religious denominations. Currently, Kent serves as the staff accompanist at Lakewood High School and is extremely proud to collaborate with Voices Rock.
Edwina Lucero
Choir Director in Lakewood
Edwina grew up in Colorado, singing in choirs at church and school, from the Meistersingers at Cherry Creek HS to church choirs and groups through college. She received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Music Education from CU Boulder and spent 20 years teaching and leading in public schools, as well as adjunct at a community college. She has directed a wide variety of styles of choirs, and musicals. The best moments of her teaching career were spent in Northwest Denver with her students building a choir program that was inclusive and prioritized a sense of belonging, welcoming any level, at all times. Edwina believes in the ability of every person to use their voice to express and connect to their self and others, that music-making is ingrained in our heartbeat and how we interact with the world, and her greatest joy in life is helping others discover this for themselves. Edwina and her husband and kids live in Lakewood, and she works with her husband as Director of Operations at his nonprofit, Colorado Treks. She’s excited to make music with Voices Rock!
Laura Masko Gibson
Choir Director in Englewood
Laura Masko Gibson is an educator and musician who has been steeped in eclectic music influences her whole life. Her first concert was at age five at The Arvada Center singing as the fifth wheel in her dad’s barbershop quartet. Laura is the founder of the all-women band Mud & Marrow, which currently plays original alt-folk music all over town, as well as the neo-soul band Not A Luxury, where she co-writes all the music with her brother. She has also been drumming and dancing at Cleo Parker Robinson with master drummer Koffi Toudji since 2009.
Laura has directed over 30 middle school theatre productions and she is also mom to two rambunctious kids in Englewood.
Laura believes that everyone can and should sing. Music is for everyone–it is our birthright, and we all deserve to feel what it’s like to be a part of a group lifting up our voices. Laura is thrilled and humbled to be directing the Englewood choir for Voices Rock!
Caley Barstow
Choir Director in Portland
Raised in New England, Caley moved cross-country to beautiful Portland, Oregon, in the 1990s. A graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont, Caley sang with the college choir, which recorded music for Vermont Public Television’s “A Vermont Christmas” one chilly January. A lifelong musician, Caley plays piano, organ and clarinet and wistfully wishes she had time to learn how to play her forlorn cello. Daytimes, Caley writes for a financial services firm, but nights and weekends, you’ll find her leading choirs or playing music at Trinity United Methodist and Tigard United Methodist churches in the greater Portland area. A skilled choir leader, Caley is particularly gifted at building communities, leading fun rehearsals and making people feel seen, heard and welcome. Caley has three grown daughters and loves walking her dog, Poppy, through Portland’s many wooded trails.
Heather Arnold-Renicker
Operations Director, Reverb
Heather has been singing in choirs since kindergarten and has never met a harmony she didn’t want to jump into. She performed in musicals throughout middle and high school and sang in both a classical concert chorale and show choirs (think real-life “Glee” — jazz hands and all). In college, she joined the women’s chorus at CU Boulder, but after graduation, she struggled to find a choir that felt like home. Enter Voices Rock! She joined in 2017 and hasn’t stopped singing (or recruiting others to sing) since. Now the Operations Director of Reverb, Voices Rock’s community outreach choir, she is committed to spreading the joy of music and group singing throughout Colorado — because everything is better when sung in community. When not belting it out with her choir family, she can be found lost in a good book, traveling or cheering on her competitive swimmer daughter at meets (though sadly, swim parents are not encouraged to sing from the stands).
Andy Ard
Guitar, Voices Rock Band
Andy Ard is a Denver singer-songwriter and the band leader of Voices Rock choir. He also performs with choir director Jill Teas as an acoustic duo. Andy grew up playing guitar, has played in numerous bands, knows a startling number of cover songs, been part of the accompaniment for local musicals, and composed the music for the 2003 virtual tour of the White House for the White House Historical Association. He writes and produces original recordings and enjoys collaborating with other artists. A career highlight was performing with Voices Rock at Red Rocks Amphitheater in 2018 and 2021.
Kegan Warring
Bassist, Voices Rock Band
Kegan Warring is a multi-instrumentalist and music educator who believes in making music accessible to everyone. He studied upright and electric bass at the University of Missouri – Kansas City, where he gained experience with a number of musical styles, including gospel music. He gigs, writes music and does studio work in Denver, where he is also a member of the band Catahoula Sun. Kegan’s been part of the Voices Rock band since 2022. He spends his days teaching music at the Denver Center for International Studies at Fairmount.
Betsy Leighton
Co-Founder
Dave Ramsey
Choir Director in Denver (Cap Hill)
Dave Ramsey is a professional performer, composer, director, writer, and music educator based in Denver, CO. As a soloist, in ensemble, and as a director he has performed a wide range of music from punk and metal to baroque chamber music, opera, EDM, jazz, and experimental contemporary works. Dave’s original music has been performed on 5 continents and is commissioned for new pieces by ensembles of all sizes. He currently serves as the Director of Music at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church and as the Music Teacher at DSST: Green Valley Ranch High School, both in Denver.
Betsy Leighton
Co-Founder