The Encore Effect

Wendy Miller

Wendy Miller, Ph.D. ATR-BC, LCPAT, REAT, LPC, BCPC is a writer, sculptor, educator, and expressive arts therapist. She taught for over fifteen years in various universities throughout the country, including John F Kennedy University, San Francisco State University, Southwestern College, Lesley College, California Institute of Integral Studies, and The George Washington University. She is a practicing clinician and the co-founder of Create Therapy Institute, which offers clinical services in arts-based psychotherapy and trainings in the expressive arts. She is a founding member, and first elected (past) executive co-chair of the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association, where she continues to be on their Advisory Council. Her current work is evolving as she integrates her own work with the legacy of her late husband’s work, pioneer of creative aging, Gene Cohen.        Miller’s skills take her into the worlds of fine art, writing, psychology, expressive arts therapy and mind-body medicine.  She has published on medical illness and the arts as complementary medicine, the use of sand tray therapy with internationally adopted children, experiential approaches to supervision in expressive arts therapy, and on the cultural responsibility of the arts in therapy. She continues to research the relationships among the arts, creativity, aging, and health. She has published her book from the writing she and Gene did together, entitled: Sky Above Clouds: Finding our way through creativity, aging and illness, released in March 2016 from Oxford University Press. (www.sky-above-clouds.com [http://www.sky-above-clouds.com/]). Miller is a speaker available for conference keynotes, conversational readings, and presentations on life-cycle challenges and creative aging.

Dr. Mary Ann East

Mary Ann East has been with Encore Creativity for Older Adults since August 2018 when she began conducting the Encore Chorale at Goodwin House Bailey’s Crossroads. In September of 2019 Mary Ann became the Program Director of Sentimental Journey Singers, Encore’s choral program for singers with early to mid-stage cognitive change and their care partners. On June 1, 2022 Mary Ann became the Director of Arts for Life working to expand Encore’s programing for those with cognitive change.   Mary Ann has taught music to ages 3-93. She is a former Fairfax County Public School music teacher where she taught elementary general music through high school choir and former adjunct professor at George Mason University. Mary Ann is currently the Music Director at Community of Faith UMC in Herndon (VA) and Co-Founder/Artistic Director of Capital Harmonia, a local women’s chorus whose mission is to bring music composed by women and for women’s voices to the DC area through partnerships with local women’s organizations. Mary Ann holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Music Education from Boston University, a Master of Music in Choral Conducting and Vocal Performance from George Mason University, and a Bachelor of Music Education from Indiana University.

Dr. Terry Fulmer

Terry Fulmer, PhD, RN, FAAN, is President Emerita of The John A. Hartford Foundation in New York City, a foundation dedicated to improving the care of older adults. She serves as the chief strategist for the Foundation and her vision for better care of older adults is catalyzing the Age-Friendly Health Systems social movement. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and served on the independent Coronavirus Commission for Safety and Quality in Nursing Homes. She previously served as Distinguished Professor and Dean of Health Sciences at Northeastern University and Founding Dean of the New York University College of Nursing. Dr. Fulmer is nationally and internationally recognized as a leading expert in geriatrics and is also known for conceptualization and development of the national NICHE program and research on the topic of elder abuse and neglect. She is the first nurse to have served on the board of the American Geriatrics Society. She is also the first nurse to have served as President of the Gerontological Society of America, which awarded her the 2019 Donald P. Kent Award for exemplifying the highest standards for professional leadership in the field of aging.

Dan Cohen

Dan Cohen, MSW, founder and CEO of Right to Music [https://righttomusic.com/], is a passionate advocate for integrating best practice music-based interventions into healthcare, especially long-term care and for all persons with dementia.  In 2010 he founded Music & Memory, a nonprofit organization that promotes the use of personalized music to enhance the well-being of the elderly and infirm. The therapeutic and joyful outcomes of his work are portrayed in the Sundance audience award-winning documentary, "Alive Inside.” You can watch the documentary here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPIORV5NekM [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPIORV5NekM] He has presented at numerous healthcare and dementia caregiver conferences in the United States and internationally.  Driven by his vision of widespread adoption of music-based interventions, he is focused on advocating for policy changes, raising public awareness, improving research, and modifying the curriculum for future healthcare professionals. Additionally, he is a co-founder of the International Music and Dementia Advocacy Coalition, which seeks to expand global access to music for people with dementia.

Jamie Wooten

You can find Jamie's Donor Interview in the July 2025 issue of Encore Extra [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ca_Q1UsqveLR8oF1FR6hzWjvuv0FqG-b/view]! https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ca_Q1UsqveLR8oF1FR6hzWjvuv0FqG-b/view [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ca_Q1UsqveLR8oF1FR6hzWjvuv0FqG-b/view]   Jamie Wooten is a tenor with both DC Chorale and DC Rocks, and resides in Chevy Chase.  Professionally, he enjoyed a 20 plus year career in Hollywood, writing and producing 400 episodes of television, including many seasons of the classic sitcom "The Golden Girls", spending every day laughing with Bea, Rue, Estelle and the deliciously dirty-minded Betty White.  He won the Writers Guild of America Award working with those wonderful women.  He wrote comedy for many others, including George Burns, Cindy Williams, Barbara Mandrell, Tyne Daly, RuPaul, Debbie Reynolds, Dolly Parton and Little Richard.  Today he is part of the writing trio Jones Hope Wooten [https://www.joneshopewooten.com/], the most-produced playwrighting team in America. https://www.joneshopewooten.com/ [https://www.joneshopewooten.com/] He is also a BMI songwriter, with many songs recorded by other artists and many tunes placed in television series and feature films. In his life, he has delivered singing telegrams, served as a Cruise Director on Princess Cruises, jet-skied around Bora Bora, performed on Broadway, farmed tobacco in rural North Carolina, climbed to the apex of Angkor Wat, comforted veterans on the shores of Guadalcanal, been complimented by Mel Brooks, saved the lives of feral cats on Kauai, made burritos at Del Taco, sung ballads for Michael Feinstein and yodeled for Melissa Etheridge, snorkeled in the Galapagos, served on the sound crew for the Pope's visit to Los Angeles, broken his leg jumping off a stage, been proposed to at the top of the Eiffel Tower and crashed Ann Miller's funeral. He also has an unnatural affinity for the music of ABBA, and feels Facebook is the worst thing to happen to humanity since the Bubonic Plague, but hey, that's just him...