Mark Hijleh

Global Musicianship team leader and author Mark Hijleh has taught music at the university level for nearly three decades. Currently Provost, Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Professor of Music at Montreat College in North Carolina, he holds the MA in World Music with distinction from the University of Sheffield; the DMA in Composition from Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University; the MM in Composition and Conducting from Ithaca College, and the BS in Music with Honors from William Jewell College. Hijleh has spoken and written about world music theory and history though the College Music Society, Analytical Approaches to World Music, the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, and the Society for Ethnomusicology. He also studied shakuhachi with Ronnie Nyogetsu Reishin Seldin and Black Music with Dominique Rene De Lerma. Hijleh is author of Towards a Global Music Theory: Practical Concepts and Methods for the Analysis of Music Across Human Cultures, and Towards a Global Music History: Intercultural Convergence, Fusion, and Transformation in the Human Musical Story, both from Routledge.

Hannah S.H. LeGrand

Hannah LeGrand is an actively performing classical violinist and educator, based in New York City. She received her Bachelor's Degree in Violin Performance from the Greatbatch School of Music. 

 Hannah has worked with a number of reputable teachers and performers from institutions such as the Eastman School of Music, Frost School of Music, Syracuse University, Boston Conservatory, the Juilliard School, Mannes at the New School, and NYU. She has also attended Summer Strings at NYU, Meadowmount School of Music, and the Castleman Quartet Program, during the summers. 

 Aside from her classical background, Hannah also has experience in jazz, pop, and contemporary music, and has proficiency in vocals, electric bass, and piano.

Marc LeGrand

Revered by band members from the Temptations, John Mayer, Norah Jones, Santana, and Journey music groups, NYC-based guitarist-composer Marc LeGrand has worked with and studied under countless GRAMMY-winning artists since before he was even a teenager. The San Francisco-born, Menlo Park native explored his love of music early on. Shortly after beginning lessons as a child, Bay Area classical guitarist Mark Aitkin praised LeGrand’s natural touch and quick comfortability with the instrument and urged him to commence studies in theory and harmony to cultivate his gifts for improvisation and composition. By 16 years of age, LeGrand made his recording debut as a sideman and contributing composer with the Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble of San Francisco—featuring multi-GRAMMY-nominated flautist virtuoso and composer Dr. John Calloway as well as the late GRAMMY-nominated trumpet player Jerry Gonzalez. While garnering soloist awards and attention as a teenager in some of the San Francisco Bay Area’s most prestigious venues and festivals, LeGrand intimately explored elements of Jazz, Latin, and Afro-Cuban music with his aunt (Latin jazz composer-pianist prodigy Patricia Thúmas) and his uncle (Rock n’ Hall of Fame inductee Chepito Areas). 

By the time he graduated high school, LeGrand had received wider recognition within the San Francisco Latin jazz music community for his prodigious guitar and compositional abilities—of which he further explored during his summer studies at Stanford University's Jazz Institute program. LeGrand holds a Bachelor’s of Music in Guitar Performance from the Greatbatch School of Music (with focuses in Theory and Composition) where he studied on scholarship with classical guitar master Dr. Anton Machleder.