(Washoe/Shoshone/Paiute/Quinault)

Michelle is a member of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe in NV where she grew up and currently lives. She is dedicated to Native Wellness by way of dance. She is a classically trained musician from the age of 10, has a bachelors in general studies and masters degree in music education from the University of Nevada, Reno, champion fancy shawl dancer, mother, Zumba instructor, and has played in various music ensembles. Michelle loves to inspire and innovate through performance with her knowledge of cultural dances from around the world. Upholding traditions and evolving them to fit our lives today is what Michelle is most passionate about.

Elisa is an Elementary Music Educator for the Fort Worth Independent School District. She earned her Bachelor of Music Education at The University of Texas at Arlington. She holds her Orff Schulwerk certification and has completed Kodaly I level. Elisa is currently a part of the elementary music curriculum writing team for Fort Worth ISD and was an Assistant Director of the Fort Worth Children’s Honor Choir for 2 years. Rangel seeks to shed light on the Latino culture and promote the recognition of Latino culture in the education field and American society as a whole.

Mr. Franklin J. Willis currently serves as the Elementary Music Coach for the Metro Nashville Public Schools district. For the past decade Willis has taught both general music and choir at the elementary and middle school levels. He is a three time recipient of the prestigious Country Music Association Foundation Music Teacher of Excellence award. He specializes in providing musical instruction that will empower and engage all children to achieve their best through authentic culturally relevant teaching experiences. He is a graduate of the University of Memphis where he earned a Bachelor's of Music Education with an emphasis in choral music. Willis also earned the Master of Education Degree in Nonprofit Leadership at Belmont University.

Valerie Diaz Leroy is an instructional coach, researcher, and pedagogy specialist for QuaverMusic. Before coaching music teachers around the country, she served as a music educator for 13 years at Shorecrest Preparatory School in St. Petersburg, Florida. Valerie received her B.A. in Vocal Performance from Boston College, holds Orff Levels I & II, and a Kodály Certification. She is vice president of Kodály of North Carolina and sits on the OAKE Inclusion and Diversity Committee. Valerie has been researching the historical evolution of the banjo and the disconnect that exists between the implementation of folk music in the classroom and its historical origins and perspectives. Valerie’s dedication to nurturing cultural sensitivity allowed her to pursue certification as a Conflict Transformation facilitator through the Imani Works Corporation, which provides insight into how to help shape an accurate narrative around cultural traditions and perspectives in academic fields.

(pronounced TSOY)

Alice is an Asian American/Chinese American pianist, music educator, and lifelong Brooklynite. She graduated from New York University with a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance and a Master of Arts in Music Education, and is currently a doctoral candidate (ABD) in music education at Boston University. Alice is the founding music teacher at P.S. 532 New Bridges Elementary, an arts-integrated public elementary school in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and is on the piano faculty at the Manhattan School of Music Summer program. She facilitates freestyle rap, hip-hop, improv, and comedy musical experiences with youth and adults across the U.S. with Freestyle Love Supreme. As a product of the NYC public school system, Alice is passionate about anti-racist public music education and empowering the individual and collective voices of youth through music.

Juliana is a Ph.D. Candidate in Music Education with an emphasis in Ethnomusicology at the University of Washington, and a general music teacher at Laurelhurst Elementary School in Seattle, WA. Juliana has completed Orff Schulwerk (I-III) and Kodaly Pedagogy (I) levels and worked at the Smithsonian Folkways World Music Pedagogy Course at West Virginia University (2015-2020), and at the University of Washington (2018-2020). Blending her interests in music education and ethnomusicology, Juliana has presented papers and given clinics at several national and international conferences in North America, South America, and Europe. She has also been published as a researcher, including a chapter on children's communities of practice in the maracatu de baque virado tradition in the upcoming Oxford Handbook of Early Childhood Learning and Development. In 2020, she helped launch and currently directs Baque Maré, Seattle's maracatu de baque virado (an Afro-Brazilian drumming tradition) ensemble.

Pamela is a nationally published author, a singer-songwriter, and a self-described “Carolina Daughter." She is descended from enslaved people from the Pee Dee region of South Carolina. The importance of her family’s history was inculcated into her upbringing by her parents, who shared ancestral stories and music that had been passed down for generations. Having researched her family’s genealogy for more than a decade, history, race, and culture largely inform her music and writing. Pamela earned her MFA Degree in Non-fiction Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte, North Carolina. She worked for many years as an adjunct professor at a private university in Dallas, Texas. While teaching world literature to her students, Pamela was inspired to create a lyceum to share the music and history of the African American experience that her students felt had been largely absent from their formal educational experiences.She is the creator of the Big Family Search, a project focused on the reunification of descendants of American-born enslaved people who were separated by forced migration in the antebellum era.

Danielle Brown, Ph.D. is an artist, scholar, and entrepreneur. Brown earned a doctorate in Music from New York University with a concentration in ethnomusicology and specialization in the music of Latin America and the Caribbean. She is the Founder and CEO of My People Tell Stories, LLC and directs the Caribbean Music Pedagogy Workshop, a summer professional development workshop for teachers. She is the author of the music-centered ethnographic memoir, East of Flatbush, North of Love: An Ethnography of Home, and the East of Flatbush, North of Love: Teacher Guidebook. Brown is a 2018 NYSCA/NYFA Fellow in Folk/Traditional Arts and was a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Musicology at the University of Miami for the 2019—2020 school year.

Martin is a Latinx Immigrant, educator, drummer/percussionist, activist, and youth organizer. His work is based on facilitating brave spaces for youth to fall in love with music and promoting social justice through music making. He holds a B.A. in Jazz Performance from the University of New Orleans, an M.A. in Jazz Arts from the Manhattan School of Music, an Advanced Certificate in Music Education from Brooklyn College, and is a Doctoral candidate in Music Education at Teachers College at Columbia University. He teaches music and coordinates a restorative justice program at Harvest Collegiate High School in New York City. Martin presents on the intersections of social justice activism, music technology, music education and youth development. His community music group, “Liberation Drum Circles," engages youth in co-facilitating workshops for teaching and learning topics of oppression and liberation through the setting of a drum circle and by problematizing, researching and organizing to create meaningful change in their communities.

Andrew teaches elementary music and works as an instructional coach in Decorah, IA. He earned his B.A. at Luther College and his M.A.M.E. at the University of St. Thomas with a dual concentration in Kodály and Orff Schulwerk. Ellingsen teaches movement in the Orff courses at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN and Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX, and has presented at both the Organization of American Kodály Educators and the American Orff Schulwerk Association national conferences. He is currently serving on the Decorah Human Rights Commission. Ellingsen believes teachers should be lifelong learners and address our blind spots in order to continually make the classroom a more inclusive place.

Chico is a Brazilian popular percussionist, professor in Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB, Brazil). He develops researches in the areas of Music Education, Popular Music, Transcultural Music Studies (ethnomusicology) and Performance, with focus on percussion, decoloniality, collective apprenticeship, rhythmics and corporeality. Researcher, educator and performer, he has published books and didactic materials within Projeto Guri (the biggest Brazilian music-social-educational project). He teaches regularly in Brazil, Latin America and Europe. Percussionist of several groups in João Pessoa, São Paulo, Campinas and Berlin, Chico acts as interpreter, composer and musical director.