Teaching Artist, Performing Arts
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Teaching Artist with 25 years practical experience leading programs and workshops in music, theatre, dance, storytelling and on-camera hosting. I am the content creator, editor and on camera host of Erin Lee and Friends, a series of videos featuring performing arts lessons - plus songs and stories - for children and educators. Erin Lee and Friends can be found on YouTube and other platforms, and licensed to educational apps for virtual learning.
Erin Lee Kelly began performing as a teenager in Kingston, Ontario, moving to New York after receiving a scholarship to study at The American Musical and Dramatic Academy. Upon graduation she spent several years as an actress and choreographer, performing onstage and in films. She transitioned to teaching through the Mead School in Stamford, CT.
It was an immediate and joyous connection, and her trajectory switched from making theatre and music for adults to making theatre and music with children. Erin Lee has now spent 25 years as a teaching artist in programs throughout New York and online (.)
Her first CD of original children’s music for the stage, Someone's Gotta Wanna Play, created for and with her young theatre class, was awarded Best Recording for Younger Children by the Children’s Music Web. Her follow-up, Snowdance, debuted on Rosie O’Donnell’s R Family Cruise to Alaska, winning two ASCAP Awards and the Family Choice Award. Snowdance has since been performed onstage by casts of children and is being developed by a theatre company as a musical.
Erin Lee was elected to and served on The Children’s Music Network Board of Directors. When not in a classroom she can frequently be found performing family concerts, fronting Erin Lee and the Up Past Bedtime Band (). Their first single received a 2011 Kids Music Award for Best Song, the first of multiple awards received for excellence in writing.
As a recipient of multiple 2026 grants for arts education she recently launched Farm to Fable, a free summer program bringing theatre, music and meals to underserved children in Catskill, NY.
American Musical and Dramatic Academy, graduated 1989.
