Madeline Bridges
Project Director

Madeline Bridges is Associate Dean for Academic Studies, School of Music at Belmont University, where she teaches in the area of music education. Her degrees include a B.M. in piano performance from Shorter College in Rome, Georgia; an M. Mus. Ed. from George Peabody College of Education at Vanderbilt University; and an Ed.D. in Music Education from the University of Alabama. Dr. Bridges has taught music and music education in classrooms from kindergarten through the graduate level and frequently serves as a guest conductor and clinician throughout the United States in the areas of early childhood, elementary, middle school, and choral music education. She is past president of both the Tennessee Music Educators Association and the Board of Directors of Choristers Guild International.

E. Frank Bluestein
Managing Director

E. Frank Bluestein is the 1996-1997 Disney National Performing Arts Teacher of the Year and the 1994 Tennessee Teacher of the Year. USA Today named Mr. Bluestein as one of the top forty teachers in the United States in 1998. He serves as chairman of Germantown High School's Fine Arts Department and is founder and director of the school's theatre, the Poplar Pike Playhouse. Mr. Bluestein also serves as executive producer for the school's three-million-dollar, Emmy Award-winning television studio. Mr. Bluestein is a past winner of the American Theatre Association's John C. Barner Award and has served as an arts advisory panelist for numerous organizations, including the National Endowment for the Arts and the Tennessee Arts Commission. Mr. Bluestein spent several years as director of shows at Opryland, USA, and most recently wrote and directed the national touring production of Beale Street Saturday Night starring blues legend Joyce Cobb.


Connie Fuller
Music Director

Connie Fuller has taught for eight years at Freedom Middle School in Franklin, having formerly taught in Georgia, Texas, and Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools. Her choirs at Freedom have consistently won superior ratings at local and state choral festivals. Her students are well represented each year in various honor choirs at the local, regional, and national levels. She is a past president of the Middle Tennessee Vocal Association and has served the organization in several other capacities. Ms. Fuller is an active member of the Tennessee Music Educators Association (TMEA), the Music Educators National Conference (MENC), and the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA).

Jim Dodson
Visual Art Director

Jim Dodson has been an art teacher in the Oak Ridge school system for twenty-two years and was selected as the 1998 Tennessee Art Educator of the Year and the 1999 National Middle School Art Educator of the Year. More recently, he led the efforts to establish student art exhibits in East, Middle, and West Tennessee at high-profile venues such as the Knoxville Museum of Art, the Renaissance Center in Dickson, and West Tennessee Regional Art Center in Humboldt. Mr. Dodson secured over $1 million in scholarship awards for the students whose work was represented. He has been selected to participate in the Knoxville Leadership Education and the Oak Ridge Leadership programs. Mr. Dodson is a current board member and has served as past president of both the Tennessee Art Education Association and the Arts Council of Oak Ridge.

Linda Hall Anderson
School Administration Director

Linda Hall Anderson has served as a teacher, administrator, and art activist in Nashville for the past twenty-five years. Her teaching experiences span all grade levels and both public and private schools. While serving as the Art Coordinator for Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, she created curricula, developed relationships with community arts venues, and sought resources in support of Metro's visual art specialists. Ms. Anderson has received the Outstanding Teacher of Humanities award from Humanities Tennessee and the Art Advocacy Award from the Tennessee Art Educators Association. She retired from Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools and now serves an adjunct instructor for Belmont University.

Susan Ramsay
Performance Coordinator / Assistant Music Director

Before her retirement in May of 2008, Susan Ramsay was a music specialist at Franklin Elementary School in the Franklin Special Schools District and was named Teacher of the Year for that system. She has received National Board Certification in Music and holds degrees from Peabody College and Middle Tennessee State University. Mrs. Ramsay is past president of the Middle Tennessee Orff-Schulwerk Association and the Middle Tennessee Elementary Music Educators Association and has served as regional representative on the National Board of Trustees for AOSA. She has presented at Orff and Kodaly national conferences and for MENC. She serves as an adjunct professor at several colleges and universities and maintains an active schedule of performances as a storyteller and as a musician.

Nancy Cason
Art Exhibition Coordinator

Before joining Belmont University as a full-time adjunct professor in art appreciation and art education, Nancy Cason held a variety of positions at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, including Associate Curator, Educator for Teacher and School Programs, Educator for Docent Programs, and co-founder of the Nashville Institute for Visual Arts Education. Dr. Cason earned a Ph.D. in art education from the University of North Texas, where she served as the Project Coordinator for the North Texas Institute for Educators on the Visual Arts, a Getty professional development institute focused on museum and school collaborations. Her past teaching positions include Assistant Professor of Art Education at Middle Tennessee State University, adjunct instructor at the University of North Texas and at Baylor University, Art Supervisor for Mobile County Public Schools in Alabama, and K-12 art teacher in Alabama and Texas public schools.

Joe W. Giles
Dean Emeritus/Awards Coordinator

Joe Giles is founder of the Tennessee Arts Academy and former director of the Arts Education Program of the Tennessee Department of Education. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees in music education from Austin Peay State University and has done additional study at Peabody College, Middle Tennessee State University, and Fisk University. Mr. Giles is past president of the Southern Division of the Music Educators National Conference (MENC) and of the National Council of State Supervisors of Music. He taught music in Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools for twenty-two years, has taken choral groups on concert tours in Europe, and has received gold and silver medals in international music festivals.

Cynthia Harris
Administrative Coordinator

Cynthia Harris and her husband, Jim, returned to Nashville in 2003 after spending thirty years in Greeneville, Tennessee. During eighteen of those years, they owned and operated an office supply and equipment company. In Greeneville Ms. Harris served on a variety of nonprofit boards devoted to youth and economic initiatives. From 2001 to 2003 she served as Vice-Chair of the Reality Program, a Juvenile Court-administered community program for adolescent drug and alcohol abuse. She was a member of the Asbury United Methodist Church choir for twenty-four years and a member of the Big Spring Singers, who perform throughout East Tennessee. Cynthia continues to enjoy participating in her church choir in Nashville.

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