Founders

As a Grammy award winner performer, bass-baritone Daniel Henry has sung with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, sang the role of Porgy in Porgy and Bess, Maestro Michael Stern: farewell performance with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Cleveland Opera, the Cleveland/San Jose Ballet with Rudolph Nureyev in his last role The Overcoat, Gateshead Amphitheater in Hardcastle, England; Edinburgh Festival, Scotland; St. Severin Concert Series (French Latin Quarters), the Colorado Symphony and the Joffrey Ballet. He has worked with Dave Brubeck, Maestro Daniel Barenboim, and Maestro Edwin London, Nobel Prize winners Bernhard Rands, and David Amram.

Educated at Lycee Maurice Ravel in Paris, France; Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and Cleveland Institute of Music, he has taught at Cleveland’s historic Karamu House, Vocal Coach for MCA – Silas Records, the Chicago Public Schools Advanced Arts Education Program @ Gallery 37 – Vocal Arts with CSO community relations director Lee Koonce, presided over the Gallery 37/Sherwood Conservatory of Music touring choir as lead artist, and Chicago Public Schools Advanced Arts Education Program @ Gallery 37 – Vocal Arts Ensemble with HHW as the sponsoring instructor and vocal coach with Niles North High School, and Evanston Township High School.

Mr. Henry is on the music staff at Fourth Presbyterian Church, a performer with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, and co-founder, President of the Henry Hendricks Weddington School for the Performing arts. HHW School for the Performing Arts.

Mrs. Jean N. Hendricks is a classically trained vocalist, writer/poet, lyricist, and entrepreneur. She has taught in the Chicago Public Schools as an elementary/secondary music teacher and librarian. She joined the inaugural team at the Chicago Public Schools Advanced Arts Education Program at Gallery 37 in 2000. Before leaving the CPS system, Ms. Hendricks developed a program called “Reading in the Content Area through Fine Arts”. She has since enhanced that program to include writing. She uses this technique and method in the not-for-profit organization she founded, “Creative Works in Fine Arts”. Ms. Hendricks studied writing at Columbia College, Chicago and Chicago State University, where she received a Bachelor of Arts Degree; studied music at Sherwood Conservatory of Music; Chicago Conservatory of Music; graduated from Ray Vogue Modeling School, and has continued her education by taking graduate classes in Counseling, Business, and Music. Among her many mentors and teachers are such greats as the poet laureate and author Gwendolyn Brooks, Dr. B. J. Bolden, author/educator; Joseph Holmes, dancer and choreographer; James Ramsfield, Composer/Music Educator; Josephine Poelinitz, Composer, Arranger, Music Educator, and founder of the CPS All-City Youth Chorus.

Mrs. Hendricks has worked in the fine arts since childhood as a singer, visual artist, actor, writer, poet, model, fashion designer, fashion choreographer, and dancer in the genres of R&B, Contemporary, Pop, Jazz, Gospel, and Traditional Spirituals. As a classically trained singer Jean has used her vocal skills to combine American, European, and Third Word Music to teach and train others to create a musical experience that tells the human experience and living testaments of the various venues in the human condition. She strives to enhance the global awareness in the Arts and share that awareness with her audience and students.

Brian Weddington has served as Assistant Professor of Theater at the University of Illinois in Chicago where he also received his B.A. in theater. Continuing his studies at Rutgers University in New Jersey earned him the M.F.A. in acting. His professional acting career is extensive and varied with theatrical, film and television work throughout the United States and abroad. Some of his creative works include: the hit movie Barbershop 2, ABC’s One Life to Live, the National Black Arts Theater Festival production of “The People Who Could Fly”, the Kennedy Center’s theater production of “The Darker Face of the Earth” and “Thieves Carnival”, which was performed at the theater of Southwest Moscow. He has several national and regional television commercials to his credit including All State Insurance, McDonald’s and Century 21.

His service and dedication to arts in education has allowed him to instruct youth in various community programs including The New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Chicago Public Schools Advanced Arts Education Program at Gallery 37, After School Matters, Upward Bound, Project CHANCE and the Boys and Girls Club of America. He is the Principal Director and Co-Founder of the HHW School for the Performing Arts, and a Principal Company Member of RIPE MANGO, an African-American Theater Company. Brian is presently writing a book of monologues for youth called “CURRENT TAKE ME OVER” and a book of scenes and monologues from the Christian experience entitled “LIFTED”.