LEANNA PRIMIANI
Leanna Primiani is an award-winning composer who aims to bring together the collective experiences of the many for greater understanding. Her music asks listeners to consider deep issues and ideas related to the female experience, as she believes that connection and thoughtful participation can catalyze powerful change. Leanna writes music that changes how listeners see themselves and the world around them. Using electronics as well as orchestral instrumentation, she explores the limits of musical form, sound, and time.
Taking her story-telling further, she composes for film and television. Credits include the WIF/Fox Searchlight production of Signal, the feature documentary Altitude Not Attitude, as well as the remake of the cult classic The Bad Seed, directed by and starring Rob Lowe. Variety’s Jon Burlingame calls the music “one of the most remarkable… scores of the past season.” Her training as a classical composer, her fluency with large-scale orchestral scores combined with her talents in electronic sound design gives Leanna an advantage few other composers can boast when scoring film.
Leanna recently won the 2020 Toulmin Commission from the League of American Orchestra and The American Composers Orchestra to compose a work for ROCO in Houston to be premiered in February 2021. She will be a composer-in-residence at The Millay Colony for the Arts in Upstate NY summer of 2021. Recent premieres include Gaudete by the Wheeling Symphony in December 2020, Glass Ceiling by the St. Olaf Band, OMNI for Reed Trio by Trio 212 New York City, Anxiety for Violin and Electronics in NYC all in May 2021, with Anxiety for Cello and Electronics premiered by Nick Photinos at Bang On A Can at MASS MoCA in July 2021.
A native Californian, Leanna currently splits her time between Santa Monica and New York. She earned a doctorate in composition from USC and has studied with such noted composers and conductors as Leonard Slatkin, Peter Eötvös, Christopher Rouse, Steven Stucky, Morten Lauridsen, and Howard Shore. She is a member of BMI, Recording Arts Academy, Television Academy, New York Women Composers, The Alliance of Women Film Composers, and The Society of Composers and Lyricists.
WORKS
GLASS CEILING recorded by the St. Olaf Band and Dr. Timothy Mahr
