Location: Manhattan, NYC
Education
- Interlochen Arts Academy: High School Diploma
- University of Michigan: BM in Composition
- Berklee College of Music: Masters in Scoring for Film, Television and Video Games
Experience
Leigha is an experienced pianist with a love for teaching learners of all ages. She has studied both piano and composition throughout a roughly 20 year span and enjoys teaching new material through both academic methods and intuitive learning. Leigha has experience teaching music in both private and group settings and loves to occasionally incorporate composition activities into her piano lessons and vice versa. Her focus on building good technique as well as a strong emotional connection to the music helps her students build a well rounded level of playing and encourages them to zone in on both their strengths and weaknesses.
Bio
Leigha L. is a pianist and composer with a passion for storytelling through music. Born and raised in Silver Spring, Maryland, she began learning piano at the age of 5. Leigha trained as a classical pianist and began her formal musical education in 2013 at Duke Ellington School for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.. She studied there for two years and in her sophomore year was one out of dozens of students selected to take private lessons outside of school with the internationally celebrated concert pianist Dr. Raymond Jackson. She was also awarded the Judges’ Choice award in the Classical Advanced category of the 2015 DCPS Piano Competition. She studied at Duke up until her junior year in 2015 when she started attending Interlochen Arts Academy and found a hidden love for composing music. At Interlochen she studied for one year as a pianist with Dr. Michael Coonrod and her last year as a composer with Dr. Cynthia Van Maanen. She then went on in 2017 to study composition at University of Michigan, where she worked under the guidance of composers Kirstin Kuster, Erik Santos, and Evan Chambers, and eventually received her Bachelors of Music degree in Music Composition. While at Michigan, Leigha wrote music to be performed by various student ensembles and continued strengthening her piano skills under the guidance of Dr. Matthew Bengtson. Leigha graduated from Michigan in 2021 and went on to study at Berklee College of Music (Valencia Campus) and earned her masters in Scoring for Film, Television, and Video Games in 2023.
Leigha believes strongly in the importance of having a close emotional connection with the music you are learning or playing. She enjoys teaching students to intuitively learn and feel where they want to go with music and then structuring that with more technical lessons that can be found in academic teaching.