Sarah Leonard

Soprano Sarah Leonard was a leading figure in the world of contemporary music, devoting her recordings almost exclusively to works of the 20th and 21st centuries. She was also a significant educator, and she gained public exposure by singing the theme to the British television series Silent Witness. Leonard's recordings appeared on boutique labels, including Somm and ECM. She remained active in the years before her early death, appearing in 2022 on an album of Messiaen works by the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. Leonard was born on April 10, 1953, in Winchester, England. She took up the violin at age eight and the piano a year later. At 11, she joined the choir at St. Cross Church in Winchester. Leonard attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where among her primary teachers were Benjamin Luxon and Noelle Barker. After graduating, Leonard performed with the BBC Singers, the Endymion Ensemble, and London Sinfonietta Voices, and the former group especially instilled in her an orientation toward contemporary music. She made her recording debut in 1988 as Drusilla in Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea under conductor Richard Hickox. That would be one of her few efforts devoted to non-contemporary repertory. The following year, she appeared on the Michael Nyman-composed soundtrack to the popular experimental film The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, beginning a long association with Nyman. In 1989, Leonard made her debut at La Scala in Milan in Giacomo Manzoni's Dr. Faustus. Leonard performed with the Michael Nyman Band for some years and also with the Hilliard Ensemble. In 1997, she appeared in the premiere of Helmut Lachenmann's Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern, and she later recorded the work. She has appeared in concert with both traditional ensembles, including the London Symphony, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in the Netherlands, and the San Francisco Symphony, and with contemporary groups, including the Klangforum Wien and Ensemble Modern. Leonard's voice became widely known when she recorded the theme song to the British television crime program Silent Witness. She appeared over some years with accompanist Malcolm Martineau in the series A Century of English Song on the Somm label and also recorded for ECM (on an album of works by Górecki in 1993), Sargasso Records, Altarus, Neos, and Divine Art, among other labels. In 2022, she appeared on Orfeo on the album Messiaen: Les Offrandes Oubliées; Poèmes pour Mi; Chronochromie with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony. Leonard died of brain cancer on October 31, 2024. ~ James Manheim, Rovi