It is with great sadness that we heard of the death of Sarah Leonard last week. As a long-standing friend of Benslow Music, she led popular courses here for many years, across repertoire from Bel Canto Arias to English & American Song. Her regular recitals with pianist Stephen Gutman were a meticulously programmed highlight of our annual concert series.
Alongside her work at Benslow, she was well-respected as a versatile musician, working across opera, music theatre and concert. After studying at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, she spent five years with the BBC Singers, before pursuing a solo career. A champion of 20th and 21st century composers, she presented works by Harrison Birtwistle, Helmut Lachenmann, György Ligeti, Pierre Boulez, Jonathan Harvey and Michael Nyman.
In opera, her performances included Dr Faustus by Giacomo Manzoni at La Scala Milan, Al Gran sole Carico d’Amore by Luigi Nono at Hamburg State Opera and Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelholzern by Lachenmann in Hamburg, Stuttgart, Paris and Vienna. She also toured extensively with the Hilliard Ensemble and the Michael Nyman Band. Sarah made over 35 recordings, including of Ligeti’s Aventures, Nouvelle Aventures with the Schoenberg Ensemble, a song cycle by Joe Cutler, In Praise of Dreams, with Stephen Gutman, and John Harle’s Silencium, known to a wider audience as the theme music for the BBC’s Silent Witness.
Sarah will be hugely missed by everyone at Benslow Music, and we would like to extend our condolences to Sarah’s family, friends, students, and colleagues.
To honour her legacy at Benslow Music, we would like to invite members of the Benslow Music community to share their memories of Sarah. If you would like to do so, please email Ellie on ellie@benslowmusic.org. We will share as many as we can on this page.