Leanna Primiani, Composer

Biography

California native Leanna Primiani’s career — as a composer and conductor — has garnered her recognition as a unique, wide-ranging musical voice who writes for orchestra, band, chamber ensemble, solo instruments, chorus and solo voice, film, multimedia, and sound installation. A trained flutist and a DMA graduate of the University of Southern California (USC) Thornton School of Music, Primiani studied with noted composers and conductors Steven Stucky, Christopher Rouse, Howard Shore, Leonard Slatkin and Peter Eötvös.

Primiani’s music has been performed in the US and abroad by: the Nashville Symphony, who gave the world premiere of Sirens (for orchestra) conducted by Leonard Slatkin; the Cabrillo Music Festival, which premiered Searching for M with Help from a Large Orchestra; the American Composers Orchestra’s annual Underwood New Music Readings in New York City; the Aspen Music Festival, which presented Parada (for sextet); the Ensemble Aventure Freiburg (Germany), who performed Parada at Herrenhaus Edenkoben artist retreat and recorded it for SWR German Radio, and in Paris where Heterotic E8xE8 and Type I Superstring (for small ensemble and live electronics) were featured at the Centre de Création Musicale Iannis Xenakis.

Other performances include: the Virginia Opera Festival’s scenes-reading of her opera Truman; pianist Jacob Greenberg’s world premiere of Variations at the June in Buffalo Festival; the USC Symphony’s first performance of Chaconne; the Vox Musica womens’ chorus 1st Prize Award and concert of her choral work Paraklesis, and sound installations for PURE, a Massachusetts-based mixed-media interactive exhibition and sound lab.

Primiani’s newest works are for chamber ensemble. The flute piece The Black Swan premieres August 9, 2012 at the National Flute Association Convention (NFA) in Las Vegas, Nevada. Commissioned by NFA for its annual High School Soloist Competition for outstanding young performers, soloist Aaron Goldman and pianist Dianne Frazer will perform the eight-minute, single movement-work which was inspired by the composer’s fascination with birdcalls. The composer’s Holy Order-Shaker Dances (for oboe, violin, cello, and piano) premieres in San Francisco in fall 2012 and will be performed by the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble as part of the National Rapido! Composition Competition, presented in conjunction with the Atlanta Chamber Players, Boston Musica Viva, Fifth House Ensemble (Chicago, Illinois), and Voices of Change (Dallas, Texas). Primiani’s other recent works are: Shadowbanks (2011)—a 15-minute orchestral work written in response to the 2007-08 banking industry collapse; and a new concert band arrangement of Sirens (2010). Upcoming projects include a solo percussion piece for soloist Evelyn Glennie, and an NEA grant for a new work for the Albany Symphony (New York) to be premiered in a future season of the orchestra’s American Music Festival.

Primiani’s honors include: an ACCBDA Emerging Composers Grant; first prize in the St. Paul Choral Competition; recognition by the Detroit Symphony’s Elaine Lebenbom Annual Memorial Award; first prize in the St. Paul Choral Competition; an Aspen Music Festival Fellowship awarded by the Susan and Ford Schumann Film Scoring Program and the Schumann Center for Compositional Studies and the USC Leonard Bernstein Music Scholar Award. On the conducting front, Primiani is the first woman to receive a Ford Foundation Conducting Talent Grant, and has been recognized by the Kiril Kondrashin Masterclass (Netherlands), the Peter Eötvos International Institute and the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s SYNERGY! composer and conductor mentoring program.

As a conductor, Primiani’s vast repertoire ranges from standard symphonic and operatic works to new masterpieces and cutting-edge music of the 20th- and 21st-centuries. Primiani currently serves as conductor for the California Opera Association and music director for the Central California Ballet. Former posts include music director for the LA Opera’s Demonstration Tour of “Figaro’s American Adventure,” associate conductor for LA Opera’s production of Judas Maccabeus under James Conlon, music director of the Fort Worth Dallas Ballet (Texas), and cover-conductor for the National Symphony. Her conducting activities have taken her throughout theUS and toEurope leading the Ensemble Aventure Freiburg (Germany), the Fort Worth, San Antonio, Santa Rosa and Pasadena Symphonies, the Fresno Philharmonic and the Dallas Opera Orchestra.