What We Believe
Our Mission…
Lift the Spirit Choir is an inclusive, care-based singing community rooted in play, authenticity, and connection — to each other, the natural world, and the spirit we all share.
Our Vision…
Lift the Spirit Choir envisions a world where communal singing supports wellbeing, belonging, and embodied self-expression, reviving shared song as a practice that sustains connection across generations and cultures.
Our Directors
Marissa Kinsley
Marissa Kinsley is a musician, community builder, and co-director of the Lift the Spirit Choir in Denver. With early roots in piano, flute, and ensemble performance — from concert bands and piano conservatories to the Notre Dame marching band — music has long been a channel of joy and expression in her life. Though she has pursued business in college and professionally, her love for music remained a cornerstone of her life through various forms. Through study with vocal teacher and Lift the Spirit co-founder, Kathleen Hooper, she reconnected to her voice an instrument, opened the doors of possibility for musical pursuits, and found herself in the first season of the choir, where she eventually shifted from choir participant to co-director. In the last several years of study and teaching, she has discovered a deep passion for the healing and transformative power of song.
She now coordinates women’s song circles in Denver, arranges music, provides musical support for retreat spaces, and co-directs Lift the Spirit Choir all with the intention that music can be medicine — capable of moving energy, connecting communities, and inviting personal transformation. She is dedicated to expanding the music’s reach and impact across Denver, creating more opportunities for people to connect and experience the healing of heartfelt, intentional singing.
Roy Willey
Roy Willey is a musician, teacher, and song leader specializing in Circle Singing and Vocal Improvisation. One of the founding directors of Lift the Spirit Choir, Roy believes that singing is everyone's birthright. Prior to Lift the Spirit Choir, he founded the Voice Circle Colorado community in 2017 as an outlet for singers of all levels to move past self-judgment and fear to connect with their authentic voices.
Roy is a 2018 graduate of the Community Choir Leadership Training in Victoria, British Columbia, and a member of the Ubuntu Choir Network, He has studied intensively with Rhiannon, Bobby McFerrin, Judi Vinar, Zuza Gonçalves, Denis Donnelly, and Siobhan Robinsong, among many others.
In addition co-directing Lift the Spirit Choir, Roy teaches Vocal Improvisation classes and leads regular improvisational Circle Singing events in the Denver and Boulder area. He also performs with Magpie Vocal Improvisation Ensemble, and leads sound and voice meditation workshops online and in-person.
Elle Logan
Elle Logan is a mezzo-soprano, music director, photographer, and somatic voice educator. She is the founder of the Embodied Voice Institute and co-director of the Lift The Spirit Choir, guiding singers in soulful, community-centered practice. Elle holds a Master of Music in Operatic Performance from the University of North Texas and a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Florida State University.
Elle has performed across the United States, with international debuts in South Korea and Europe. As an Educational Artist with The Dallas Opera, she helped bring music education to over 25,000 children. She has directed choirs and taught voice since her student days at FSU, supporting singers of all ages in cultivating freedom, expression, and connection.
With a passion for blending classical training, somatic awareness, and heart-centered leadership, Elle creates spaces where voices flourish — not only as instruments of music, but as vessels of authentic expression and personal power.
Timeline
The OG Lift the Spirit Choir,
Spring 2022
Lift the Spirit Choir - From the beginning
Lift the Spirit Choir began as a vision in the minds of Ashlynn Manning-Teng and Kathleen Hooper, friends who shared a dream of creating a community of singers with the purpose of lifting their spirits through song.
Ashlynn, an accomplished jazz singer and early childhood music teacher, and Kathleen, a successful songwriter, teacher, and member of the touring duo LVDY, began to wonder together about what it would take to make their dream happen. Neither had experience forming or leading an adult choir. The world was just coming out of a global pandemic. Yet they were determined that the time was ripe, and such a group was exactly was their community was longing for.
In early 2022, they joined forces with Roy Willey, a singer and song leader who led a successful choir pre-covid, and together they began to put dreams into action.
Lift the Spirit Choir officially manifested in February, 2022, with 17 gifted musicians who shared a deep love for beautiful, uplifting harmonies.
In the years since, our Denver group has grown and maintains a membership of between 30-40 committed singers of all ages.
In the fall of 2024, Ashlynn launched Lift the Spirit Choir Charlottesville, with co-directors Lori Derr and Katrien Vance.
Milestones
January 2022 - Founders Ashlynn and Kathleen meet with co-director Roy Willey to brainstorm ways to make their vision for Lift The Spirit Choir a reality.
February 2022 — Lift the Spirit Choir officially begins its first season, with 17 original members rehearsing in the atrium of a co-working space in a converted warehouse. With Covid-19 still a concern for singers, choir members rehearse with masks for most of the first season.
May 2022 - Lift the Spirit hosts our first song share/performance, a benefit for a grassroots Ukrainian organization whose mission was to shuttle refugees away from front line areas, while shuttling food and supplies in.
Summer 2022 - Elle Logan, one of our original choir members, steps into a co-director roll, after founding director Ashlynn moves with her family to Virginia.
September 2023 - Original choir member Marissa Kinsley steps into co-director roll, joining Kathleen, Elle and Roy.
November 2023 - After exploring venues around the Denver area for more than a year, Lift the Spirit Choir finally finds its forever home at the Sixth Avenue United Church.
Fall 2024 - With Kathleen's songwriting and touring schedule thriving, and Roy's teaching and travel schedule keeping him busy, choir member David Meehan steps up into a leadership role to help co-direct for the season.
Fall 2024 - Founding Director Ashlynn Manning-Teng launches Lift the Spirit Choir's sister choir in Charlottesville, with co-directors Lori Derr and Katrien Vance.
December 2024 - Kathleen officially steps away from he choir to devote her full attention to songwriting, recording, and touring with LVDY, her folk duo, as well as her own musical projects.
Spring 2025 - Back down to three directors for season number 10, as David steps back to devote time to a new business venture.
Fall 2025 - The Choir finds a new performance home at Denver's Althea Center for Engaged Spirituality.
