give the girls a hand

Our Bios

Amy started out as a "legit" musician, playing classical violin since the age of 9. But early in life she was bitten by the pop/jazz bug: she spent a decade directing and performing in summer stock musicals with The Wildwood Summer Theater and sang in Yale's first coed a cappella group, Redhot & Blue. She later directed the Yale-grad-infested a cappella ensemble Take Note! where she re-discovered her a cappella-singing husband (well, he wasn't her husband yet) and subsequently spawned two musical children (okay, at that point he was), who now keep her sleep-deprived but happy. She makes films for love and money, usually more of the former than the latter. Betsy has been singing all of her life in various ensembles, from church choirs to madrigal groups to a brief stint in a Hawaiian rock band. Between her husband and 3 kids, her job as a government attorney, and her various volunteer activities, she manages to stay out of trouble most of the time. Her favorite  part of Venus rehearsals is the wine and the laughing, but the singing part is o.k., too.

Now that the Red Sox have FINALLY won the World Series, Dolores can relax and embrace her inner Nats fan. She works as a fundraiser by day for the National Trust for Historic Preservation and spends her off time raising Ian & Noah with her husband, Jamie, serving as treasurer for Takoma Park-Silver Spring Youth Baseball and has recently done the math and realized that she has been singing a cappella music with Robin for a quarter century!

 Jenny (sadly, not of the Nordstrom department store family) comes to music honestly, with professional musician parents and countless other relatives afflicted by the disease. She is a graphic designer who met her adorable rocket scientist husband through the personals (really!). She and her husband also recently adopted the world's cutest baby, a little charmer named Sienna. In her other, secret musical life, she spends way too many hours rehearsing and performing with the Choral Arts Society. She fills the rest of her time with long-distance bicycling and pottery.
After a freak accident involving a false eyelash and a disco ball derailed Beth's dream to be a hip-hop flygirl, she turned to Venus for solace and musical adventure. Today, she serves as the group's musical director bringing years of piano lessons, collegiate a cappella experience, and post-graduate work in cat herding to the job.   Given her genetic inability to learn lyrics or languages, it is a good thing Kristin sings second alto. Having grown up wandering the back roads of upstate New York, she thanks Montgomery county zoning and those rich people in Middleburg for the great cycling around Washington. The daughter of an Air Force top gun pilot, she was forced to abandon her plans to follow in his footsteps when in the third grade her eyesight slipped to 20-200. Instead she became a lobbyist, where she is better served by a keen sense of smell. She lives in Arlington with her husband Tim.
Patti is the newest Venusian, having just joined in the spring of 2004. She's the resident stodgy classical geek, but the girls tolerate her because she has cute dogs and a decent wine cellar. She was born with a bit of a handicap: she is cursed with perfect pitch. But she's managed to overcome it since joining and no longer convulses when Venus slides into the key of schwa. Oh, and she's the youngest member, actually born in the 1970s, nyah nyah. Easily identified by her large, mis-matched feet, resulting slight limp, and big toothy smile, Robin is the group's part-time lyricist, most-of-the-time on key second alto and full-time loon. She is paving the way as Venus members approach AARP, menopause and something else she can't remember. She resents that several members of Venus are barely out of puberty. Robin lives in Bethesda with her son Griffin and their dog Hubbel. She raises them strictly by the book and the stun collar - just don't ask which book or who's wearing the collar. Please note: Due to Robin's extremely short attention span, all Venus selections must be no longer than 2.5 minutes.