Patricia Leonard
Patricia Leonard
A native of Boston, Patricia Leonard’s early musical training began with piano studies, followed by composition studies at The New England Conservatory. She received a degree in Composition from The Boston Conservatory of Music. Principal composition teachers include Larry Thomas Bell and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Del Tredici. Ms. Leonard’s music is performed frequently in the U.S. and in Europe, and her music has been premiered by acclaimed ensembles and artists such as the New York Piano Quintet, featuring members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; Broadway singer Timothy Shew; Grammy Award-winning clarinetist Eddie Daniels and renowned contemporary music pianist Christopher Oldfather. Her opera “My Dearest Friend” based on the letters of President John Adams and his wife Abigail received the Opera Amercian 2015 Discovery Grant to premiere at Peace field, the Adams Family estate in Quincy, MA on July 2, 2016. This work for orchestra, soprano and baritone featured Metropolitan Opera singers Wendy Bryn Harmer and Charles Taylor. Ms. Leonard is a winner and a semi-finalist for the American Prize in Composition for both “My Dearest Friend” (winner) and for her piano trio “Strangely Close, Yet Distant;” this trio is also featured on “Mahler in the Absence of Words.” Ms. Leonard’s compositions have been reviewed as “arresting and evocative with innovative harmonies” by New York Concert Review; the New Music Connoisseur reviewed her musical style as “revealing musical sophistication and a high level of craftsmanship” and “wildly imaginative and vivid storytelling with virtuosic variety.” Ms. Leonard is a co-founding member of New York Composers Circle and shared the group’s inaugural concert in May 2003 with guest composer, David Del Tredici. She is also a Board member of The League of Composers/ISCM, and a member of International Alliance of Women in Music. Also an opera judge, Ms. Leonard paneled the annual Violetta DuPont, Gerda Lissner and The Licia Albanese – Puccini vocal competitions for aspiring young opera singers. Ms. Leonard is an Earshot Recipient with American Composers Orchestra.
What Shall We Do for the Rent?
Year: 2015
Duration (in minutes): 1:20:00
Difficulty: High (professional)
Category: opera
Description: Opera in One Act. Camden Town, London–1908. The action takes place over the course of one afternoon in the studio of painter Walter Sickert. The artist is waiting for the arrival of his next subject, a young model to sit for him as part of a series of melancholy female nudes on beds. Sickert will give this painting the title What Shall We Do for the Rent to add to his three other paintings in the series to be titled The Camden Town Murders; this will cause much controversy and ensure attention for Sickert’s work. Throughout the session, the model inquires more into Sickert’s odd obsession with Jack the Ripper and she grows increasingly uncomfortable with his predilections for violence and distressed women. Then begins a series of probing questions that examine Sickert’s true feelings towards women and morality.
Was Sickert Jack the Ripper?
My Dearest Friend - The Letters of John and Abigail Adams
Year: 2014
Duration (in minutes): 0.052083333
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: orchestra and chamber orchestra
Description: America's first “power couple,” John and Abigail Adams shared a correspondence of over 1,100 letters from 1762-1801 that detailed some of the most significant events in American history. Their personal accounts of America's political tensions with Great Britain and their unyielding determination to design
a new independent nation are beautifully nuanced with descriptions of domestic life in Boston, and underscored with Abigail's tremendous personal sacrifices to support her husband's political career.
Seven Tears into the Sea
Year: 2010
Duration (in minutes): 0:17:00
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: larger chamber ensembles - more than 4 players
Instruments: any string, any woodwind, cello, clarinet, viola, violin
Description: Written for clarinet quintet, this piece tells the story of a seal fairy, or selkie, named Coventina. A female Selkie is able to discard her seal-skin and come ashore as a beautiful maiden. If a human can capture her seal skin, this prevents her from returning to the sea, leaving the seal-maiden to marry her “captor.” Should they return to sea, however, they are never to see their captor lover again. The legend is that if the tormented lover cries seven tears into the sea, the selkie may return to visit them.
Demonstrations of Love
Year: 2009
Duration (in minutes): 0:10:00
Difficulty: High (professional)
Category: solo voice(s) with piano
Description: A song cycle for soprano and piano about the spectrum of love from searching, finding and losing it. Cycle is comprised of four songs: 1) HOPE; 2) FALLING; 3) 40 YEARS and 4) EVERYWHERE.
Original text is by Patricia Leonard.
Venetian Moonlight
Year: 2009
Duration (in minutes): 0:10:00
Difficulty: High (professional)
Category: mixed instrument trio
Description: An old man standing on the Rialto bridge in Venice has one night to fulfill three wishes: youth, love and fame, all under the magical and mysterious Venetian moonlight.
Strangely Close Yet Distant
Year: 2003
Duration (in minutes): 0:14:12
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: concertos, small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players
Description: In 1912, Alma Mahler met the young Viennese painter Oskar Kokoschka. They began a passionate love affair that soon evolved into an intensively obsessive relationship. Although she had many suitors, the one man always standing between them was Alma’s late husband and composer, Gustav Mahler. To Oskar, Gustav’s memories lived inside Alma with his music, preventing the kind of emotional intimacy Kokoschka longed for with her. The title comes from Alma’s diary entry of 1922, when she met Kokoschka by chance in Venice. “Strangely close, yet distant” is how she referred to their meeting.
What Shall We Do for the Rent?
Year: 2015
Duration (in minutes): 1:20:00
Difficulty: High (professional)
Category: opera
Description: Opera in One Act. Camden Town, London–1908. The action takes place over the course of one afternoon in the studio of painter Walter Sickert. The artist is waiting for the arrival of his next subject, a young model to sit for him as part of a series of melancholy female nudes on beds. Sickert will give this painting the title What Shall We Do for the Rent to add to his three other paintings in the series to be titled The Camden Town Murders; this will cause much controversy and ensure attention for Sickert’s work. Throughout the session, the model inquires more into Sickert’s odd obsession with Jack the Ripper and she grows increasingly uncomfortable with his predilections for violence and distressed women. Then begins a series of probing questions that examine Sickert’s true feelings towards women and morality.
Was Sickert Jack the Ripper?
My Dearest Friend - The Letters of John and Abigail Adams
Year: 2014
Duration (in minutes): 0.052083333
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: orchestra and chamber orchestra
Description: America's first “power couple,” John and Abigail Adams shared a correspondence of over 1,100 letters from 1762-1801 that detailed some of the most significant events in American history. Their personal accounts of America's political tensions with Great Britain and their unyielding determination to design
a new independent nation are beautifully nuanced with descriptions of domestic life in Boston, and underscored with Abigail's tremendous personal sacrifices to support her husband's political career.
Seven Tears into the Sea
Year: 2010
Duration (in minutes): 0:17:00
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: larger chamber ensembles - more than 4 players
Instruments: any string, any woodwind, cello, clarinet, viola, violin
Description: Written for clarinet quintet, this piece tells the story of a seal fairy, or selkie, named Coventina. A female Selkie is able to discard her seal-skin and come ashore as a beautiful maiden. If a human can capture her seal skin, this prevents her from returning to the sea, leaving the seal-maiden to marry her “captor.” Should they return to sea, however, they are never to see their captor lover again. The legend is that if the tormented lover cries seven tears into the sea, the selkie may return to visit them.
Demonstrations of Love
Year: 2009
Duration (in minutes): 0:10:00
Difficulty: High (professional)
Category: solo voice(s) with piano
Description: A song cycle for soprano and piano about the spectrum of love from searching, finding and losing it. Cycle is comprised of four songs: 1) HOPE; 2) FALLING; 3) 40 YEARS and 4) EVERYWHERE.
Original text is by Patricia Leonard.
Venetian Moonlight
Year: 2009
Duration (in minutes): 0:10:00
Difficulty: High (professional)
Category: mixed instrument trio
Description: An old man standing on the Rialto bridge in Venice has one night to fulfill three wishes: youth, love and fame, all under the magical and mysterious Venetian moonlight.
Strangely Close Yet Distant
Year: 2003
Duration (in minutes): 0:14:12
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: concertos, small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players
Description: In 1912, Alma Mahler met the young Viennese painter Oskar Kokoschka. They began a passionate love affair that soon evolved into an intensively obsessive relationship. Although she had many suitors, the one man always standing between them was Alma’s late husband and composer, Gustav Mahler. To Oskar, Gustav’s memories lived inside Alma with his music, preventing the kind of emotional intimacy Kokoschka longed for with her. The title comes from Alma’s diary entry of 1922, when she met Kokoschka by chance in Venice. “Strangely close, yet distant” is how she referred to their meeting.