"I loved singing. I loved performing. I would practice every single day and I was enthralled by music. I started writing songs shortly after," she told
The Bergamot, the husband and wife musical duo of Nathaniel Hoff and Jillian Speece, took root at Marian High School in the early 2000s. The two met at the Mishawaka, Indiana, high school when Speece was 15 and Hoff was 17. Their art teacher had encouraged them to write a song that represented Marian as part of a statewide arts competition.