Leila Ramagopal Pertl (She/Her)

Leila Ramagopal Pertl  teaches Music Education at Lawrence University and is the Music Education Curator for the Mile of Music Festival and founder of the Music Education Team, a team which serves over 7,000 people a year in, diverse, hands-on music-making workshops throughout the four day festival. She created the innovative Music curricula at Next Generation School in Champaign, IL and at Appleton Public Montessori, and now, Edison Elementary, where music is treated as a core subject; each student being immersed in drumming, dancing, singing, improvisation, composition, and music theory. In 2022, Leila created a lab partnership with Edison Elementary, just 3 block from the Lawrence Conservatory, where her Lawrence music education students can get real, hands-on experience teaching elementary students in an actual school classroom. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education from Lawrence University, a Master of Science degree in Music Education from the University of Illinois, and is a recipient of Pi Kappa Lambda Honors, Excellence in Music Education. She is an active presenter and has recently given workshops for the College Music Society, Smithsonian Year of Music panel on the Future of Music Education, Wisconsin Choral Directors Association, Milwaukee Children’s Choir, and numerous WMEA State Conferences. She is a curriculum writer for PBS Wisconsin: Re/sound, connecting classroom music educators to global musical culture bearers in Wisconsin. She recently authored,”Creating Communities of Belonging: Keeping Creativity at the Heart of Inclusion,” a chapter in Becoming an Artist to the World: Music and Social Entrepreneurship in the 21st Century (Summer ’24), on which she is also the DEI editor and audio book narrator. Leila was the 2018 recipient of the Mentor Award from the Wisconsin Association of Colleges of Teacher Education (WACTE). She served as the Wisconsin Music Educators Association State Chair for Composition and Improvisation from 2018-22, a recipient of the Fox Cities Chamber’s 2024 Excellence in Education Shining Star Awards., is one of two Equity Chairs for WMEA, is the Chair of the Committee on Cultural Inclusion for the College Music Society, and is on the Music Education Committee for Smithsonian Folkways. Leila is married to Brian Pertl, Dean of the Lawrence Conservatory of music, and together they enjoy spending time with their 5 adult children and their Australian Cattle Dog, River. Leila believes that music is a birthright, and loves being with people in collaborative, powerful, creative spaces!