Montgomery County Community College

April 29, 2006
Morris Road and DeKalb Pike
Blue Bell, PA 19422
http://www.ticketleap.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=search&cid=F6E2529A-40CA-7A03-16361597F818A691

Artist web site: http://www.rilearts.com/lbbio.htm

Leon: Germantown, I went to Lingelbach, Roosevelt, Germantown High, and I went to Temple University.  I also studied music at Settlement.

Leon: I think it probably had an impact because my support group was so large. It was not only my parents it was not just my relatives it was my friends with whom I played with which spread positive reaction to what I was doing. It was in my church where my first solo recital when I was thirteen was presented. All those people there supported me and did through my life. That was a very important thing.

PCM: You have a performance April 23rd at Montgomery County Community College. How do you determine your program?

Leon: I do variety of programs. It is decided well in advance if it's a recital program, in many instances there will be pieces on a program that I may use frequently but I do not tour with one program for several months. I tend to tailor make the program for a specific event. Many times the presenter will have a specific request. Sometimes they'll ask for a straight traditional classical program. Other times they'll ask for a varied program that would include traditional composers as well as some of the popularly recognized composers like George Gershwin or Duke Ellington, so I'll give them that kind of variety. So each program has a tailor made situation to each. At Montgomery County it be a tribute to Duke Ellington. It will be a program that will include many of the very well known pieces that were performed by the Duke Ellington Band. There's a small portion of work by Billy Strayhorn as well as a Mercer Ellington composition. The early part of the program is music by people who have influenced Duke Ellington, people like Scott Joplin, Euby Blake, James P. Townson. The program as I said is a tribute to Duke. The idea being that I've taken many of the works that were made famous by the band and doing them in solo piano arrangements, my own arrangements. This is music we generally wouldn't hear on the classical recital stage. I feel that is my way of bridging the gap between the things I enjoy. I've always been a great jazz fan but I am a classical musician and certainly very devoted to that genre but this is music that crosses over very well and is music that should be heard.

Leon: My first recollection was my parents buying me a recording of Tchaikovsky's 6^th Symphony. They had those record players in those days that played 45's, the recording was an LP and so large that I had to take the tone arm and turn it around and put it on the wrong side of the record to play it because it scraped on the right side. Then I would lay on the floor and put my ear to the speaker and listen to this music. I was seven or eight and I didn't know what it was but I was captivated by it. Later my parents would take me to concerts, I would hear Rudolph Serkin, the various soloists that would come in and play with the orchestra. I remember seeing Eugene Ormandy conduct the orchestra. Then there was the Ed Sullivan Show. The variety of talent he had on the show. I remember hearing Itzak Perlman for the first time on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Leon: Chopin, Sergei Rachmaninoff, I think what I like about those composers is first of all I really enjoy the romantic literature because of the richness of the harmonies of that period. People like Chopin and Rachmaninoff really wrote specifically for the piano taking  advantage of the resonance of the piano creating music that taps into all of its range.

Leon: Oh yeah! I was very aware of her,

Leon: I know what you mean, absolutely it's amazing in own era so many people are leaving us. Some many people who made a tremendous impact.

PCM: They're hard shoes to fill.

Leon: Yeah they really are, although I do feel that somehow or another there's something in that that has to do with us as well. It's like it's our time to step up is really here. Not to replace those people but to continue on what they've been about. When I think about what jazz and certainly classical music represent, it's about a very intellectual approach to music it's about listening and appreciating to not only melody but the interaction of intervallic relationship, harmony and being able to access all of that and bringing imagery to it. It's listening on another and a difference kind of experience than your general pop music. It does ask a lot more of us.