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Our founder and president
Allison Jarrell founded Metro Music Makers in 2002 as a private Atlanta-based music studio offering in-home music lessons. In addition to overseeing a variety of instructors in the Metro Music Makers community, she is a board-certified Music Therapist licensed in the State of Georgia.
Originally from Easley, South Carolina, Allison attended the Greenville Fine Arts Center in high school and earned her Bachelor of Music in Music Therapy from Florida State University. After college, Allison pursued a career as a touring singer-songwriter, recording three EPs and one full-length album.
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.
Allison’s flexibility in diverse positions and environments gave her the training needed to begin Metro Music Makers. 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 believes that the process of learning how to play a musical instrument and learning how to create music relates to everything else that we accomplish in life. She says, “When I think about the influence that lessons and music may have in our students’ lives, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude.”
Now that Allison has seen thousands of students excel and graduate through the Metro Music Makers program, she enjoys catching up with prior students to see what exciting things they are doing with their lives.
Allison also was a one-time snake handler (a long story involving removing a baby snake from her house that turned out to be a copperhead!) and a one-time opera singer, (I Pagliacci) in 1991.