Artistic staff

Ames Saari is a lifetime choral musician with a curious variety of singing and conducting credits to her name. She served as an “emergency” student conductor on two choir tours with the Grinnell Singers in 1997 and 1998. She went on to receive Masters degrees in Choral Conducting and Composition from Bowling Green State University, where she also won the 33rd Annual Competition in Music Performance, composition division, with a choral piece premiered by the BGSU Women’s Chorus at the New Music and Art Festival in 2000. As a student member of ACDA, she was selected for a conducting masterclass with Jerry Blackstone of the University of Michigan in 2000.

With her move to southeast Michigan, Ames set a new course. Her voice, keyboard, and composition skills were shown variously in venues around Detroit: Black Lotus, Scarab Club, DIME, and Jazz Café, among others. She served as a session backup singer for Orthea Barnes’s last album, “I Was The One”. While directing the Motor City Chorale, she also served as alto section leader of the Rackham Symphony Choir. She started her private teaching career while serving as voice coach for “Torch This!” presented by Rouge Makeup and Nail Salon and Via Vintage in 2012 – a night of American songbook standards at Cliff Bells of Detroit sung by amateur singers to a sold-out crowd that raised over $3000 for Urban Neighborhood Initiatives.

After 2012, Ames formed an interfaith choir, Spectrum Singers, to perform at the InterFaith Leadership Council World Sabbath in 2014. She formed the Pagan Pathways Temple Choir, who participated in an interfaith concert celebrating The Four Freedoms at the Henry Ford Museum in 2018. She would also form LadyBones, the cabaret lounge trio of Theatre Bizarre, and go on to perform with them on one of the most exclusive stages at Electric Forest.

Currently, Ames enjoys directing choral music at the Metropolitan Community Church of Detroit. She is just as proud to bring her directing skills to Sing Out Detroit, the all-gender inclusive, mixed-voice LGBTQ+ and ally chorus of metro Detroit.