MEET SOME OF OUR FAVORITE LOST KEYS ALUM!
LEANNE MERITON
Voice Part: Soprano
Position: Social Director
About: Leanne works in Digital Advertising in NYC and feels very lucky to have founded this amazing group of talented singers along with Patrick Dillon and Jessy Tomsko in 2011. She enjoys long walks on the beach and wine tasting.
Musical Experience: Grew up performing in musical theater at NJPAC and was a part of the Bucknell Chapel Choir as well as the Bucknell Sillhouettes (PA 2002-2005), Bridge and Tunnel (NYC 2006-2010) a cappella groups. Reigning karaoke champion at Iggy's Karaoke bar.
Favorite Keys Moment: Hosting The Lost Keys 2012 Summer retreat at her house in New Jersey!
Fun Fact: Leanne once sang opera for Jerry Springer and is related to Abraham Lincoln.
BLAKE BRANDES
Voice Part: Beat boxer/Rapper
Position: Doctor of Fly Beats & Rhymes
About: Blake is a hip-hop educator, motivational youth speaker, and Marshall Scholar with a PhD. When he's not traveling to inspire young people around the world, he's rocking freestyle raps on-stage with The Lost Keys.
Musical Experience: As a professional music producer/songwriter, Blake has published numerous Top 40 singles in Europe and produces his own independent hip-hop in NYC. He sang with Innuendo co-ed a cappella at Wake Forest University, and he'll miss The Lost Keys when he moves to California in May!
Favorite Keys Moment: Every spontaneous jam session we've ever had, including an epic improvised Viking saga during one of our retreats.
Fun Fact: Blake will rhyme about you...just ask!
JACLYN HOCHREITER
Voice Part: Soprano/Mezzo
About: Jac was born at a very young age. She farms while rapping to Eminem, and giggles when baby animals tumble. What of it?
Musical Experience: Jac majored in music, was in the 80s a cappella group, 'The Rhythm Method' in college, which does not actually enforce the use of...well, you know. She also plays the banjo and guitar, and sometimes writes folksy stuff.
Favorite Keys Moment: Bed sheet Noun Bucket. Make that thread count!
Fun Fact: Jac has never lost a pepper eating contest. #somelikeithot...terthanothers...like...it...#youdoyou
JERRY LIEBLICH
Voice Part: Bass
Position: Assistant Music Director
About: Jerry is a playwright. He write plays. He also used to work at a zoo. Ask him about it.
Musical Experience: Jerry sang at Yale with the Whiffenpoofsand SOBs, and has played piano for most of his conscious life.
Favorite Keys Moment: Meeting Oprah on the deck of the Intrepid!
Fun Fact: In 2005, Jerry met Barack Obama in a hotel lobby. He told him to run for president. YOU'RE WELCOME.
JESSY TOMSKO
Voice Part: Soprano
Position: Gig Committee
About: Jessy is a singer/songwriter and music teacher currently residing in Astoria, Queens. Some of her favorite things in life are her guitar, coffee, HBO, and yoga. She can frequently be found doing spontaneous headstands and quoting Third Eye Blind.
Musical Experience: Co-Founder of the Lost Keys, majored in Voice Performance at Westminster Choir College and also co-founded the conservatory's first and only pop a cappella group, The Deaftones. She teaches guitar, piano, voice and music theory, and performs regularly with her band in and around NYC. She can also be seen singing at the famous St. Patrick's Cathedral every week.
Favorite Keys Moment: Singing with Amber Rubarth at Joe's Pub!
Fun Fact: Jessy is currently in the studio with her band finishing up a new record!
COLLEEN CLANCY
Voice Part: Soprano I
Position: Performance Committee
About: After teaching musical theater and directing/choreographing shows in Pennsylvania, Colleen mad the move to NY and found out about this amazing group thanks to her wonderful friend and fellow key, Peter Lam. Flowers, babies, and love are her favorite.
Musical Experience: Colleen has been singing since she was a babe. She majored in musical theater and taught voice lessons after college.
Favorite Keys Moment: Our first night out together after my second rehearsal!
Fun Fact: Colleen has met three Presidents!
ANDREW "GREY MATTER" GUTTERSON
Voice Part: Beat boxer
About: Grey Matter started beatboxing over a decade ago due to ADD and boredom. Since then, he's developed his talents into an amazing career, appearing in tv commercials and on networks like MTV, BET, and Fuse TV. He has a huge youtube following, and he even taught a young Justin Bieber how to beatbox! When he's not laying down the beat for The Lost Keys, you can still find Grey rocking stages throughout the tri-state area.
Musical Experience: Beatboxer for the Muhlenberg Dynamics and hip-hop shows all over NYC!
Favorite Keys Moment: Jamming in the living room during our summer retreat! And The Lost Keys surprising his girlfriend on their anniversary with a rooftop rendition of Sam Smith's "Latch."
Fun Fact: Grey has used beatboxing to get babies to stop crying on multiple occasions...
LEE SEYMOUR
Voice Part: Beat boxer, Baritone
About: Lee hails from the wilds of suburban Massachusetts, where he grew up knowing more deer than people. He enjoys scotch smoky enough to be mistaken for bogwater and is an accomplished teller of Polish folktales.
Musical Experience: He sang with Out Of The Blue while at Yale, and continues to sing with them at various reunions, birthdays, and tailgates. He has performed in a variety of New York musicals, most notably in the role of Morgan Freeman in the award-winning 'Triassic Parq.' That is not a joke.
Favorite Keys Moment: Anything involving hot tubs.
Fun Fact: He learned a variety of SAT vocabulary words by playing fantasy video games in high school.
KEIJI ISHIGURI
Voice Part: Tenor
About: Keiji is a Brooklyn-based professional music director, arranger, vocal coach and teacher. He also oversees an arts curriculum grant at Eugene Lang College, The New School. He loves harmonizing with himself in GaragBand, Bananagrams, and spoiling his 4 year old niece.
Musical Experience: The Whiffenpoofs (Yale University), RedHot & Blue, so so many years of piano, will someone teach me guitar?
Favorite Keys Moment: Any of Jenny's amazing choreo classes.
Fun Fact: Keiji miraculously got a FIVE on his AP Studio Art Portfolio (Sorry, Ian.)
JESS HOLROYD
Voice Part: Alto
About: Jess hails from Sudbury, Massachusetts and has also spent time living in London and Sydney. She's lived in New York since 2011 and works in Business Development at American Express. When she's not working for the man, she pursues her passion for music with The Lost Keys. And at karaoke of course.
Musical Experience: University College London Opera Society, Boston Choral Ensemble and Soulfood A cappella (Sydney).
Favorite Keys Moment: Getting a call back for The Sing Off! Also, Patrick's Grape Face.
Fun Fact: Jess has harmonized along with the radio for so long, she's not even sure she could sing the melody of a pop song if she tried.
WILLIAM REID
Voice Part: "Baritenorbass"
About: William was born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas before heading to the greatest school in the world--The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Upon Graduation he continued on up the coast to New York where he currently works as a fundraiser and event planner for Carnegie Hall.
Musical Experience: BA (Vocal Performance), UNC Achordants, UNC Pauper Players, Long Leaf Opera, and for his cat Sybil, whenever Sybil deems it appropriate.
Favorite Keys Moment: Hot Tub Hot Seat!
Fun Fact: Back in the yesteryear when William was a "professional" actor, his resume had "tongue manipulations" as a special skill. You should ask him about that...
SARAH PECK
Voice Part: Alto/Mezzo
Position: Social Chair
About: Sarah hails from the small town of Old Lyme, CT. After graduating from Dartmouth College where she studied French/Italian Languages and Psychology, she packed up and moved to New York because Taylor Swift said it had been waiting for her. Sarah Currently works in Global Marketing for Laura Mercier Cosmetics and is a total beauty junkie.
Musical Experience: Sarah taught herself to sing in her kitchen, after school before anyone got home. Dartmouth College Dodecaphonics, crowned "Dartmouth Idol" 2011, NYC cabaret debut at the Metropolitan Room in 2017. Once got to sings onstage with country duo Sugarland!
Favorite Keys Moment: Canoeing on Lake Harmony in my pajamas on a glorious sunny morning after a night of hyper-competitive Werewolf playing and hot tubbing.
Fun Fact: Sarah is a two-time Collegiate Women's Sailing National Champ!
Colin Aarons
Voice Part: Bass
About: By day, Colin's a mild-mannered 9-5er. By night (specifically, just on Tuesdays and some Saturdays), he's a sultry bass and one of the few chosen Lost Keys.
Musical Experience: Sixteen Feet- Swarthmore College's all male a cappella group, musical theater galore, and was once in a cover band called "The Skinny."
Favorite Keys Moment: Getting to record on our second album! Go buy it, it's really good.
Fun Fact: Colin will never remember your name after his first try, but will rarely forget it after the second.
HOWIE KANTER
Voice Part: Tenor
About: Howie hails from "The Gateway to Jones Beach"-a hop, skip, and 25-mile jump from NYC. He's an environmental engineer working to mitigate climate change by day and a Lost Key by night.
Musical Experience: Off Broadway On Campus (University of Rochester), Christmas caroling
Favorite Keys Moment: Tie between guest performing with Amber Rubarth at Joe's Pub and discovering the polio vaccine.
Fun Fact: Has an unusual passion for Italian cheesecake since the time he learned to walk. Not New York Style, Italian style. Also tree frogs.
JAMIE LEE
Voice Part: Alto
About: When she's not trying to distract elementary school kids with music throughout different parts of Brooklyn, Jamie plays flute in the JKLM Duo at various venues. In her spare time she also loves to collaborate with as many musicians as she can.
Musical Experience: SUNY Purchase College's Choral Pleasure, Broadway Goes Acapella 1 and 2, Musical Mondays
Favorite Keys Moment: The dopest album release show ever!
Fun Fact: Jamie does not like hot drinks.
STEPHANIE LEE
Voice Part: Mezzo/Alto
Position: Social Chair / Webmaster
About: When Stephanie isn't speech pathologizing, she can be found observing babies, puppies, and babies interacting with puppies
Musical Experience: PandemoniUM (University of Maryland), attendee of unspecified karaoke bars in NYC.
Favorite Keys Moment: Every moment of 2014 summer retreat, specifically whirlpoolin' #byephoenicia
Fun Fact: Stephanie was on Wheel of Fortune!!
IAN STONE
Voice Part: Vocal Percussion
About: Ian, born and raised on Long Island, is a proud sports/fitness fanatic. He graduated Ithaca College in 2017 with a degree in journalism, with a coaching minor.
Musical Experience: IC Voicestream - Ithaca College's first co-ed a cappella group, former president.
Favorite Keys Moment: Beatboxing "Dancing On My Own" alongside the women of TLK at the Latched album release show.
Fun Fact: Ian has six older brothers and an older sister, and he is an uncle of nine.
JOYA AHMAD
Voice Part: Alto/Mezzo
About: Joya was born and raised in Philadelphia but has been living and working in New York City since 2011. She graduated from Columbia with a degree in neuroscience and is now a medical student at SUNY Downstate College of Medicine in Brooklyn. Because she physically does not know how to relax, she also serves as National Logistics Director of the COVID-19 relief nonprofit MedSupplyDrive, volunteers as an emergency room crisis counselor, and runs the NYC Marathon every year.
Musical Experience: Joya plays piano, guitar, and clarinet, and proudly owns her past as a Band Nerd. She did musical theater throughout her childhood and sang in various vocal ensembles, from professional children's choirs to her high school a cappella group. At Columbia, she sang with the jazz group Uptown Vocal as well as Barnard Bacchantae.
Favorite Keys Moment: The sheet round of Bucket of Nouns during retreat on Long Island.
Fun Fact: Joya has two kittens named Gnocchi and Pesto and spends inordinate amounts of time trying to communicate with them via meow.
JOE POWER
Voice Part: Bass (but if you need him to scream really high in falsetto, he's totally here for it)
About: Joe studied vocal performance in college and now he works in TV production, so he's obviously always had a crystal clear vision of his life path. He lives in Prospect Heights with his husband, Elliott, and not their dog because they don't have one yet (hopefully soon).
Musical Experience: Joe has sung pretty much all the things at one time or another - from medieval chant to musical theater to opera to pop. In addition to TLK, Joe currently sings with Ghostlight Chorus in New York. Previous singing things include Restated, The Muhlenberg Dynamics, and about 1000 other ensembles since he was in 4th grade...and a soprano.
Fun Fact: Joe has never had the hiccups.
PETER LAM
Voice Part: Tenor
Position: Publicity Director
About: Peter is a professional actor who hails from Philadelphia, PA. He has toured the country multiple times and performed regionally in various shows. He continues to reach for his dreams of the Broadway stage.
Musical Experience: Many years of listening to Celine Dion & Mariah Carey.
Favorite Keys Moment: Performing for a charity 5K run! So nice to be making music outside for all to hear!
Fun Fact: Peter has almost 200 videos on YouTube, mostly covers of female songs...
ADDITIONAL MEMBERS (NOT PICTURED)
Ben Houghton
Ian Janer
Deanna Giulietti
Joe Martinez