Meet Our Team
Our committed team is enthusiastic about fostering success for our diverse community and mission. With a spirit of collaboration, we face challenges and celebrate our accomplishments together, all thanks to your support, which enables us to create a significant impact.
Troy Holmes - Executive Director
Troy currently serves as the Business Manager for Quriosity Productions, a full-service production company specializing in video, photography, and editing. He combines his passion for the arts with his expertise in business development. Over the course of his career, he has played a pivotal role in helping numerous businesses thrive by providing the tools and guidance needed to establish strong organizational structures.
Now, Troy is focused on giving back to the community that warmly welcomed his family when they relocated to Flossmoor. He quickly became inspired by the town’s rich appreciation for the arts, from its renowned public art program to the exceptional theater department at the local high school. Through his connections with artists and art enthusiasts alike, Troy recognized a need for a centralized space in Flossmoor that would foster collaboration among artists from across the Chicagoland area, particularly for those who are often unappreciated or overlooked. His vision is to create a vibrant hub where artists from diverse backgrounds can come together to learn, share, and contribute to the growth of art appreciation for future generations.
773-315-2255
Shannon Keys - Board Member
As the Director of Regional High School Programs at The Academy Group, Shannon Keys specializes in developing and implementing transformative educational programs that empower students to thrive. Shannon oversees all aspects of high school and summer programming, including master schedule creation, staffing models, logistics, budget management, and regional operations. With a strong focus on experiential learning, she collaborates with teams and consultants to design programs aligned with the organization’s curriculum, ensuring high-quality, impactful experiences.
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Shannon is deeply committed to fostering a safe, inclusive environment for both staff and students. She evaluates program engagement and effectiveness by analyzing data, providing consistent feedback and supervision, and actively supporting her team’s professional growth. In addition to program development, Shannon leads recruitment initiatives, working closely with schools, families, and community stakeholders to create a seamless onboarding experience.
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Her role also encompasses family and community engagement, logistics, and professional development, allowing her to contribute to both the immediate success of students and the sustainable growth of the Academy Group’s programs. Shannon resides in Flossmoor, Illinois, with her husband and their two children.
Jyrell Keys - Board Member
Over the last fifteen years, Jyrell has dedicated himself to higher education. Currently serving as the Director of Award Management at DePaul University, Jyrell provides and maintains a network of support for faculty managing externally sponsored projects and creative activities.
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Through his own educational experience and research, Jyrell found that the value of arts in schools has been debated and tested for years, but today its benefits are firmly grounded in theory and research. Evidence demonstrates that arts education and aesthetic literacy/representation are crucial to closing the achievement gap. Learning experiences in the arts contribute to the development of academic skills. Proponents of arts education link six major types of benefits to the inclusion of the arts in education: reading and language skills, mathematics skills, thinking skills, social skills, motivation to learn, and a positive school environment.
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By integrating his educational experiences with personal passions, Jyrell believes that the concepts and principles around arts education can be applied to everyday life. Just as the arts can have positive and beneficial impacts on learners, public art can produce similar effects for everyday citizens. Public art can add tremendous value to the cultural, aesthetic, and economic vitality of a community.
Qadree Holmes - Board Member
Qadree Holmes is the Founder/Executive Producer of Quriosity Productions; a minority owned creative diversity boutique specializing in video production, post production and photography. Quriosity’s goal is to present to the market an MBE that can meet the challenges of working with brands while delivering exceptional service for our advertising clients. He is known for representing and employing a diverse creative talent roster including women and minorities that ultimately deliver and have a positive social impact and recognizable results. He has been doing this before George Floyd became the thing that made America wake up to the injustices in society.
Qadree is the catalyst of positive change and is dedicated to taking action to make it happen. He is always searching for new undiscovered women and minority artists. For decades he has been offering internships, jobs, and exposure to talented minority youth. By giving them opportunities, he is a fueling a solution that will allow the cycle to be broken. HIs dedication, perseverance and generous efforts to be an important role model, mentor, and source of inspiration has resulted in many, many success stories.
The generosity of his time seems unlimited. Qadree’s influence is evident everywhere. He sits on boards and committees, participates on panels, judges award competitions, makes speaking engagements, writes articles, and donates to dozens of organizations. For example, he sat on the AICP* committee that designed the mentoring program to give one-on-one support to minorities entering into the production business. He says engaging in real personal conversations is important and rewarding because he can understand their perspectives. He rises up and reaches back by be available to review portfolios, give honest insights and smart guidance about real world experiences and challenges to help them succeed.
Christopher McBride - Board Member
Saxophonist Christopher McBride is based in New York City and has been slowly but steadily turning heads with his ubiquitous work as an invaluable sideman since the mid-2000’s. Now Christopher is gaining respect amongst fans, critics, and his peers as one of the most versatile saxophonists in the world. His 2012 debut album Quatuor de Force certainly establishes his ability to front a group and write his own soulful, melodically indelible tunes. Applauded for his ability to play in all musical situations, McBride has the ability to unleash a fiery attack and serrated tone, but on his first album he explores a more measured, mellow sound heavily influenced by contemporary R&B—with a strong shot of Cannonball Adderley’s post-bop sensuality—but his improvising is very rigorous and cogent. As a composer, McBride was selected as the 2022 Make Jazz Fellowship artist at The 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica, California.
Born in Chicago, and starting his professional career there in 2007, Christopher made the move to NYC in 2013. His ensemble, The Whole Proof, has played venues all around the country. Christopher ran his ‘Singer Meets Saxophonist’ series at the famed Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem from 2017-2019. The musicians he has performed with over the years span many genres sharing the stage with Billy Preston, Percy Gray, Roy Hargrove, Pete Rock, Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Talib Kweli, Lupe Fiasco, Guy Sebastian, Solange, Ne-Yo, Jennifer Hudson, Alice Smith, Brandon Flowers, Lea DeLaria, 88 Keys, Milton Mustafa, Winard Harper, and the Marquis Hill’s Blacktet.
As a recording artist, McBride’s February 2023 release ‘Ramon’ made the Top 25 on the JazzWeek Charts and stayed on the charts for 14 weeks as well as making the JazzWeek Top 100 albums for 2023. The sophomore release has received critical acclaim. All About Jazz called the album “a sonic marvel that showcases a robust grasp of bebop and contemporary jazz idioms.” As a performing artist he has received a Grammy certificate for his work as a collaborator/soloist on Steven Feifke and Bijon Watson’s 2022 album “Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra.”
As an educator, McBride has served as the Director of Education for the Second Line Arts Collective, a non-for-profit organization based out of New Orleans. His primary duties included writing curriculum for the Little Stompers division and teacher development. He also teaches for Jazz at Lincoln Center regularly, as well as touring nationally with various educational programs.
As a journalist and consultant, McBride has worked with Forbes Ignite, the innovation coalition of Forbes.
Alongside leading his projects The Whole Proof & Singer Meets Saxophonist, McBride is also the Musical Supervisor of The Soapbox Presents in Harlem as well as the Musical Director of The Jazz Continuum. His active schedule includes education, arranging and composition in addition to performance.
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Troy Pryor - Board Member
Pryor serves as Vice President of SAG-AFTRA Chicago & founder of Creative Cypher, a portfolio of media entertainment brands, including XL Film Fest, Cypher Newsroom, Dark Berry Productions, Cypher Live & more.
Pryor’s directorial debut on TV One’s Change Agents led to a host of award-winning collaborations across multiple platforms. He was nominated for ADColor Innovator of the Year and most recently won a Telly Award for the film “An Outfit".