We at WPA are mourning the loss of Dr. Kendra Preston Leonard – a musicologist as well as a lyricist, poet, and a champion for women’s work in music.
Over the years Dr. Leonard has contributed several guest posts on our blog, primarily focused on her work documenting the life and music of American composer Louise Talma. Read Part 1, Discovering Louise Talma’s First Orchestral Works, and Part 2 on the piano concerto Dialogues, that Talma wrote in honor of John F. Kennedy. And Part III, on the Toccata for Orchestra. In 2018 Dr. Leonard also shared a conversation that she had with composer Jessica Rudman, with whom she collaborated. Dr. Leonard penned lyrics to many songs and full libretti to fourteen operas during her lifetime, working with many contemporary composers; in addition to Rudman, Dr. Leonard worked with Angela Elizabeth Slater, Rosśa Crean, Jessi Harvey, and Lisa Neher, among others. As an advocate for Julia Perry, she organized the open working group on the composer, hosted on Humanities Commons from 2021-2024 (archived here).
More recently Dr. Leonard was featured in Finnian Burnett’s “Five Question” series, where she speaks about her work as an educator, activist, creative, and scholar. In addition to her work bringing voices of marginalized composers to the center of conversations, Dr. Leonard was also the founder and Executive Director of The Silent Film Sound and Music Archive.
Her work will continue to entertain, inspire, educate as her creative and academic works are shared into the future. Learn more about all of Dr. Leonard’s creative and academic projects through her detailed personal website.