Jose Leonardo Leon, D.M.A
Trombonist, Arranger, Educator
Global Music Award Silver Medal winner, Dr. Jose Leonardo Leon is one of South Florida’s most active and versatile Bass and Tenor Trombonists and educators. Leon has worked with professional organizations and artists such as the Florida Grand Opera, the Miami Symphony Orchestra, the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra (Spain), the Orquesta Filarmonica UNAM (Mexico City), the Jalisco Philharmonic (Mexico), the New World Symphony (Miami), Andrea Bocelli, The Manhattan Transfer, Wicked and Frozen super star Idina Menzel, Arturo Sandoval, Wycliffe Gordon, Bob Mintzer, Paquito D’ Rivera, Eddie Daniels, 2015 Latin Grammy winner recording album Dr. Ed Calle presents Mamblue, and most recently with the Hitman David Foster and the Kravis Center Pops Orchestra. In August 2018, he released his first album entitled Journey utilizing the Bass Trombone as both a solo and chamber instrument, receiving the 2018 Global Music Award Outstanding Achievement medal for Instrumentalist and Original Compositions by American and Latin American composers. Some of Jose’s international festivals and conferences performances include residencies at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville (AK) in April 2018, the University of Costa Rica School of the Arts (San Jose de Costa Rica) in March 2017, the Alabama Bandmasters Association Low Brass Day (Tuscaloosa County) in April 2016, the 2016 URUBRASS Summit in Montevideo (Uruguay), the 2015 ITF in Valencia (Spain), the 2012 and 2013 editions of the International Trombone Week at the Universities of Oaxaca and Aguascalientes (Mexico), the 2011 JEN Conference in New Orleans (LA), and the Carlos Chavez National Youth Orchestra’ Academic Week in Mexico City (Mexico) 2010. Dr. Leon’s career started at the internationally acclaimed “Simon Bolivar” Symphony Orchestras of Venezuela known as “El Sistema”. He received his Bachelor of Music under the direction of Mark Hetzler at Florida International University, a Masters under the direction of Timothy Conner at the University of Miami Frost School of Music, and most recently his Doctor of Musical Arts in Trombone Performance and Pedagogy under the direction of Dr. William Stanley at the University of Colorado Boulder College of Music. Currently, Dr. Jose Leonardo Leon plays Tenor and Bass Trombone with Ft. Lauderdale’s Premier Orchestra The Symphony of the Americas, The Kravis Center Pops Orchestra in Palm Beach, Florida, and is an Adjunct Music Faculty Professor at Broward College and a Private Instructor of Trombone for the Gulliver Academy Performing Arts program in Miami, FL.
