Biography
Leighanne Saltsman was born and raised in rural Dutchess County in Upstate New York. She began singing in public at age four and by age 17 was accepted into the prestigious Tanglewood pre-conservatory program in Lenox, MA. Her first paid gig was singing with the New York Choral Artists behind the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center. Though she started by singing choral music, she soon became intrigued by songwriting, jazz, folk and americana music, and after recieving her B.Mus from Oberlin she moved to NYC to begin learning the business of music as a manager at Grassy Hill Entertainment, an affiliate of Judy Collins' Wildflower Records.
In 2008 she made the move to Columbia Artists Management, where she worked with Mark O'Connor and Sharon Isbin, Head of the Guitar Department at Juiliard, among others. In 2012 she took up the ukulele began writing her own original songs. Being in NYC has allowed Leighanne to become incredibly versatile, both as a singer and a songwriter, playing and writing in almost every genre imaginable. Leighanne gigs regularly around the city sitting in with friends' jazz ensembles, singing in classical choruses and also performing her original music. She is featured on recordings as a choral / harmony singer and plans to record the remainder of her EP in 2019. In the meantime Leighanne continues her studies with former Trinity Choirister Marguerite Krull, Yale School of Music / Manhattan School of Music coach Ted Taylor, and award-winning songwriter Tony Conniff.
In 2008 she made the move to Columbia Artists Management, where she worked with Mark O'Connor and Sharon Isbin, Head of the Guitar Department at Juiliard, among others. In 2012 she took up the ukulele began writing her own original songs. Being in NYC has allowed Leighanne to become incredibly versatile, both as a singer and a songwriter, playing and writing in almost every genre imaginable. Leighanne gigs regularly around the city sitting in with friends' jazz ensembles, singing in classical choruses and also performing her original music. She is featured on recordings as a choral / harmony singer and plans to record the remainder of her EP in 2019. In the meantime Leighanne continues her studies with former Trinity Choirister Marguerite Krull, Yale School of Music / Manhattan School of Music coach Ted Taylor, and award-winning songwriter Tony Conniff.
UPCOMING
April 23rd, 8:00pm, 2018
Love's Old Sweet Song
From the Victorian Parlor to the Postwar Dancefloor:
Sweet American Harmonies with Margi Gianquinto
(of Margi and the Dapper Dots)
LIC BAC
Queens, NYC
Suggested Donation
Love's Old Sweet Song
From the Victorian Parlor to the Postwar Dancefloor:
Sweet American Harmonies with Margi Gianquinto
(of Margi and the Dapper Dots)
LIC BAC
Queens, NYC
Suggested Donation
.
PREVIOUS
March 11th, 3:00pm, 2018
Rheinburger, Mass in Eb Maj
Martin, Mass
with Trinity Wall Street's Downtown Voices
Trinity Church, Broadway, NYC
FREE!
December 21, 7:30pm, 2017
Christmas Concert and Community Carol Sing
Downtown Voices and Trinity’s new music orchestra, NOVUS NY; Stephen Sands, conductor
An extravaganza of Christmas favorites for brass and choir with audience participation.
November 10th, 2017
Rachmaninoff Vespers
with Trinity Wall Street's Downtown Voices
Trinity Church, Broadway, NYC
Watch Concert
October 23rd, 2017
October Garden by Julian Wachner
Morten Lauridsen’s Midwinter Songs
with Trinity Wall Street's Downtown Voices
Trinity Church, Broadway, NYC
Watch Concert
May 20th, 2017
Philip Glass Symphony No. 5
with Trinity Wall Street's Downtown Voices
Trinity Church, Broadway, NYC
Watch Concert
Saturday, April 8th, 2017
Handel's Oratorio, "Israel in Egypt"
(HWV 54), premiered 1739
with Trinity Wall Street's Downtown Voices
Trinity Church, Broadway, NYC
Watch Concert
This April, New Yorkers (and beyond) will have the opportunity to experience the 1739 version of Israel in Egypt by George Frideric Handel. Handel is perhaps most famous for his Messiah, but Julian Wachner, Trinity Wall Street's director of music and the arts, is excited for those attending the concert on April 8th to hear what is to many people a lesser known work. "Israel in Egypt is dramatic and packed with pictorial elements, where Messiah is more reflective," he said. The Trinity Choir performs the 1739 version of Part I on April 8th in Trinity Church in a free concert that is open to the public. This performance will be webcast live at trinitywallstreet.org.
Wednesday, January 11th, 2017, 5:00pm
Zachary Wadsworth’s commission, Spire and Shadow, for the 250th Anniversary of St Paul’s Chapel
Downtown Voices with NOVUS NY
Stephen Sands, conductor
St. Paul's Chapel, Broadway and Fulton, NYC
Watch Concert
Spire and Shadow celebrates the 250th anniversary of the opening of St. Paul's Chapel, combining colorful and vibrant new music by Zachary Wadsworth with powerful poems about New York City spanning five centuries. Commissioned by Trinity Church Wall Street, this major new work explores the history of our church, the city of New York, and the many residents who have lived, loved, suffered, toiled, and triumphed here.
Rheinburger, Mass in Eb Maj
Martin, Mass
with Trinity Wall Street's Downtown Voices
Trinity Church, Broadway, NYC
FREE!
December 21, 7:30pm, 2017
Christmas Concert and Community Carol Sing
Downtown Voices and Trinity’s new music orchestra, NOVUS NY; Stephen Sands, conductor
An extravaganza of Christmas favorites for brass and choir with audience participation.
November 10th, 2017
Rachmaninoff Vespers
with Trinity Wall Street's Downtown Voices
Trinity Church, Broadway, NYC
Watch Concert
October 23rd, 2017
October Garden by Julian Wachner
Morten Lauridsen’s Midwinter Songs
with Trinity Wall Street's Downtown Voices
Trinity Church, Broadway, NYC
Watch Concert
May 20th, 2017
Philip Glass Symphony No. 5
with Trinity Wall Street's Downtown Voices
Trinity Church, Broadway, NYC
Watch Concert
Saturday, April 8th, 2017
Handel's Oratorio, "Israel in Egypt"
(HWV 54), premiered 1739
with Trinity Wall Street's Downtown Voices
Trinity Church, Broadway, NYC
Watch Concert
This April, New Yorkers (and beyond) will have the opportunity to experience the 1739 version of Israel in Egypt by George Frideric Handel. Handel is perhaps most famous for his Messiah, but Julian Wachner, Trinity Wall Street's director of music and the arts, is excited for those attending the concert on April 8th to hear what is to many people a lesser known work. "Israel in Egypt is dramatic and packed with pictorial elements, where Messiah is more reflective," he said. The Trinity Choir performs the 1739 version of Part I on April 8th in Trinity Church in a free concert that is open to the public. This performance will be webcast live at trinitywallstreet.org.
Wednesday, January 11th, 2017, 5:00pm
Zachary Wadsworth’s commission, Spire and Shadow, for the 250th Anniversary of St Paul’s Chapel
Downtown Voices with NOVUS NY
Stephen Sands, conductor
St. Paul's Chapel, Broadway and Fulton, NYC
Watch Concert
Spire and Shadow celebrates the 250th anniversary of the opening of St. Paul's Chapel, combining colorful and vibrant new music by Zachary Wadsworth with powerful poems about New York City spanning five centuries. Commissioned by Trinity Church Wall Street, this major new work explores the history of our church, the city of New York, and the many residents who have lived, loved, suffered, toiled, and triumphed here.
Sunday, Dec 18th, 2016, 1:00pm
"An Old Fashioned Christmas"
with Margi & the Dapper Dots
Fifth annual show!!
THE METROPOLITAN ROOM
34 West 22nd Street
New York, NY
$20
Margi, Singer of the Golden Age of American Popular Song and hailed by Seth Gilman (The Examiner) as "a jazz chanteuse whose musical awareness and polish are first rate", has been building a reputation for authenticity and excellence on the New York jazz scene for the past five years. Margi can be seen regularly at Mezzrow Jazz Club, The Lambs Club, The New York Athletic Club, The New York Swing Dance Society and many other venues in and around NYC and has toured internationally (most recently to Israel). She has made appearances at Birdland, The Friars Club, The American Popular Song Society, Smalls, Smoke and others, and had the good fortune to sing with some of the very best musicians on the New York Jazz scene. Her sultry style, which many describe as "vintage," and "transportive" is reminiscent of an earlier era when those marvelous big band singers and gifted vocalists sang the music of Berlin, Gershwin, Porter, Arlen and Rodgers & Hart.
Sunday, October 23rd, 2016, 5:00pm
"An October Garden"
A Contemporary Choral Performance by Downtown Voices
conducted by Julian Wachner
Trinity Wall Street
Praised by The New York Times for their “incisive, agile strength,” Downtown Voices, Trinity’s semiprofessional choir, presents their first concert of the season featuring two works by American composers Julian Wachner and Morten Lauridsen. The choir will present a new composition for choir, flute, clarinet, and piano, by Julian Wachner, Trinity's Director of Music, titled An October Garden. A four movement work based on poems by Christina Rossetti, An October Garden explores what has been described as “the inherent joy and drama of the life-cycle." An October Garden had its New York premiere last April with Wachner leading the Washington Master Chorale Chamber Choir with NOVUS NY in Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall. Morten Lauridsen's Midwinter Songs is a choral cycle set to five poems by Robert Graves. Connected by recurring motifs and phrases against the backdrop of winter, the poems are about love, sex, and death. Lauridsen is an American composer and professor of composition at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music. He is a National Medal of Arts recipient and his works are frequently performed all over the world.
July 17th, July 31st, August 14th and August 28th, 2016, 9:30am
"FOUR SUNDAYS"
A Rhinebeck Dutch Reformed Church Residency
Rhinebeck, New York
"An Old Fashioned Christmas"
with Margi & the Dapper Dots
Fifth annual show!!
THE METROPOLITAN ROOM
34 West 22nd Street
New York, NY
$20
Margi, Singer of the Golden Age of American Popular Song and hailed by Seth Gilman (The Examiner) as "a jazz chanteuse whose musical awareness and polish are first rate", has been building a reputation for authenticity and excellence on the New York jazz scene for the past five years. Margi can be seen regularly at Mezzrow Jazz Club, The Lambs Club, The New York Athletic Club, The New York Swing Dance Society and many other venues in and around NYC and has toured internationally (most recently to Israel). She has made appearances at Birdland, The Friars Club, The American Popular Song Society, Smalls, Smoke and others, and had the good fortune to sing with some of the very best musicians on the New York Jazz scene. Her sultry style, which many describe as "vintage," and "transportive" is reminiscent of an earlier era when those marvelous big band singers and gifted vocalists sang the music of Berlin, Gershwin, Porter, Arlen and Rodgers & Hart.
Sunday, October 23rd, 2016, 5:00pm
"An October Garden"
A Contemporary Choral Performance by Downtown Voices
conducted by Julian Wachner
Trinity Wall Street
Praised by The New York Times for their “incisive, agile strength,” Downtown Voices, Trinity’s semiprofessional choir, presents their first concert of the season featuring two works by American composers Julian Wachner and Morten Lauridsen. The choir will present a new composition for choir, flute, clarinet, and piano, by Julian Wachner, Trinity's Director of Music, titled An October Garden. A four movement work based on poems by Christina Rossetti, An October Garden explores what has been described as “the inherent joy and drama of the life-cycle." An October Garden had its New York premiere last April with Wachner leading the Washington Master Chorale Chamber Choir with NOVUS NY in Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall. Morten Lauridsen's Midwinter Songs is a choral cycle set to five poems by Robert Graves. Connected by recurring motifs and phrases against the backdrop of winter, the poems are about love, sex, and death. Lauridsen is an American composer and professor of composition at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music. He is a National Medal of Arts recipient and his works are frequently performed all over the world.
July 17th, July 31st, August 14th and August 28th, 2016, 9:30am
"FOUR SUNDAYS"
A Rhinebeck Dutch Reformed Church Residency
Rhinebeck, New York
Wednesday, July 13th, 2016
"SING HER NAME"
The world-premier of Courtney Bryan's musical tribute to black women impacted by racial injustice
with the James Blachly conducting The Dream Unfinished Orchestra
Cooper Union, NYC
Tickets are $25 in advance, and $35 at the door.
New York, NY, June 13, 2016 – Inspired by #SayHerName, activist orchestra The Dream Unfinished will present “Sing Her Name,” an orchestral and choral concert at the Great Hall of Cooper Union. The musical tribute to black women impacted by racial injustice, and female activists and organizers of the historic Civil Rights and #BlackLivesMatter movements, will be held on July 13, 2016, marking one year since Sandra Bland's passing. The program features all female composers, including New York premieres of works by Florence Price, Margaret Bonds, Ethel Smyth, and a newly commissioned choral work by Courtney Bryan, with text by Sharan Strange.
Under the artistic direction of James Blachly (known most recently for his acclaimed Rite of Spring Dance Party) and Grammy-award winning conductor John McLaughlin Williams, soloists include bass-baritone Dashon Burton, vocalist Helga Davis, soprano Marlissa Hudson, and pianist Michelle Cann. The Dream Unfinished Orchestra will be led by concert master Kelly Hall-Tompkins (Fiddler on the Roof), and The Dream Unfinished Chorus will include members of Downtown Voices, Cantori New York, and other area ensembles.
In addition to musical selections, Sing Her Name will include appearances by Terrance McKnight (WQXR), Kimberle Crenshaw (African American Policy Forum), Gina Belafonte (Sankofa.org), Farah Griffin (Columbia University), Agunda Okeyo (Sisters of Comedy), Farah Tanis (Black Women’s Blueprint), composer Trevor Weston, and other artists and speakers. Proceeds will go to the Center for Constitutional Rights, Black Women's Blueprint, and African American Policy Forum,. Sing Her Name is presented by The Dream Unfinished: An Activist Orchestra, whose mission is to provide a platform for classical musicians to show solidarity with the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Tickets are $25 in advance, and $35 at the door. For more information please visit http://singhername.eventbrite.com.
"SING HER NAME"
The world-premier of Courtney Bryan's musical tribute to black women impacted by racial injustice
with the James Blachly conducting The Dream Unfinished Orchestra
Cooper Union, NYC
Tickets are $25 in advance, and $35 at the door.
New York, NY, June 13, 2016 – Inspired by #SayHerName, activist orchestra The Dream Unfinished will present “Sing Her Name,” an orchestral and choral concert at the Great Hall of Cooper Union. The musical tribute to black women impacted by racial injustice, and female activists and organizers of the historic Civil Rights and #BlackLivesMatter movements, will be held on July 13, 2016, marking one year since Sandra Bland's passing. The program features all female composers, including New York premieres of works by Florence Price, Margaret Bonds, Ethel Smyth, and a newly commissioned choral work by Courtney Bryan, with text by Sharan Strange.
Under the artistic direction of James Blachly (known most recently for his acclaimed Rite of Spring Dance Party) and Grammy-award winning conductor John McLaughlin Williams, soloists include bass-baritone Dashon Burton, vocalist Helga Davis, soprano Marlissa Hudson, and pianist Michelle Cann. The Dream Unfinished Orchestra will be led by concert master Kelly Hall-Tompkins (Fiddler on the Roof), and The Dream Unfinished Chorus will include members of Downtown Voices, Cantori New York, and other area ensembles.
In addition to musical selections, Sing Her Name will include appearances by Terrance McKnight (WQXR), Kimberle Crenshaw (African American Policy Forum), Gina Belafonte (Sankofa.org), Farah Griffin (Columbia University), Agunda Okeyo (Sisters of Comedy), Farah Tanis (Black Women’s Blueprint), composer Trevor Weston, and other artists and speakers. Proceeds will go to the Center for Constitutional Rights, Black Women's Blueprint, and African American Policy Forum,. Sing Her Name is presented by The Dream Unfinished: An Activist Orchestra, whose mission is to provide a platform for classical musicians to show solidarity with the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Tickets are $25 in advance, and $35 at the door. For more information please visit http://singhername.eventbrite.com.
Friday, May 20th, 2016
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony
with Trinity Wall Street's Downtown Voices and NOVUS NY
Trinity Wall Street
NYC
Sunday, March 20th, 2016
Singing the music of James MacMillan
with Trinity Wall Street's Downtown Voices
Trinity Wall Street
NYC
Sunday, December 27th, 2015
Singing the music of Alberto Ginastera and Benjamin Britten
with Trinity Wall Street's Downtown Voices
Trinity Wall Street
NYC
Sunday, Dec 20th, 2015, 4pm
"An Old Fashioned Christmas"
with Margi & the Dapper Dots
Fourth annual show!!
JALOPY THEATER & SCHOOL OF MUSIC
315 Columbia Street
Red Hook, Brooklyn
jalopy.biz
November 7th, 2015
Singing with Oberlin's Collegium Musicum
in their 25th Anniversary Concert
conducted by Steven Plank
Fairchild Chapel
Oberlin, OH
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony
with Trinity Wall Street's Downtown Voices and NOVUS NY
Trinity Wall Street
NYC
Sunday, March 20th, 2016
Singing the music of James MacMillan
with Trinity Wall Street's Downtown Voices
Trinity Wall Street
NYC
Sunday, December 27th, 2015
Singing the music of Alberto Ginastera and Benjamin Britten
with Trinity Wall Street's Downtown Voices
Trinity Wall Street
NYC
Sunday, Dec 20th, 2015, 4pm
"An Old Fashioned Christmas"
with Margi & the Dapper Dots
Fourth annual show!!
JALOPY THEATER & SCHOOL OF MUSIC
315 Columbia Street
Red Hook, Brooklyn
jalopy.biz
November 7th, 2015
Singing with Oberlin's Collegium Musicum
in their 25th Anniversary Concert
conducted by Steven Plank
Fairchild Chapel
Oberlin, OH
September 10th, 2015, 6:00pm
Ten10 Musician Series
THE STANDING ROOM
LIC, Queens, NYC
A Portrait and Performance Series which began as a locally sourced, Long Island City musician photography project, is now a documentation of various musical artists as well as a collection of Performances in a surrounding of their own pictures.
Leighanne is featured alongside J Walter Hawkes and Etienne Guerrin, among others.
Ten10 Musician Series
THE STANDING ROOM
LIC, Queens, NYC
A Portrait and Performance Series which began as a locally sourced, Long Island City musician photography project, is now a documentation of various musical artists as well as a collection of Performances in a surrounding of their own pictures.
Leighanne is featured alongside J Walter Hawkes and Etienne Guerrin, among others.
August 9th, 23rd and 30th, 2015, 9:30am
THREE SUNDAYS
Featured Soloist
Rhinebeck Dutch Reformed Church
Rhinebeck, NY
Come get your Haydn and Bach on!
August 14th, 2015
Leighanne is singing Victoria's Missa Ave Maria Stella
with an eight-voice renaissance choir at The Feast of Assumption
St. MARY'S CATHEDRAL
Mid-town Manhattan
NYC
July 23rd, 2015
"Sweet Summer Sounds"
FREDDY'S BACKROOM
Park Slope, Brooklyn
A night of original songs and stories!
following the infamous Brooklyn Ukulele Meetup, hosted by Katie Down.
w/Julie Rozansky, bass
THREE SUNDAYS
Featured Soloist
Rhinebeck Dutch Reformed Church
Rhinebeck, NY
Come get your Haydn and Bach on!
August 14th, 2015
Leighanne is singing Victoria's Missa Ave Maria Stella
with an eight-voice renaissance choir at The Feast of Assumption
St. MARY'S CATHEDRAL
Mid-town Manhattan
NYC
July 23rd, 2015
"Sweet Summer Sounds"
FREDDY'S BACKROOM
Park Slope, Brooklyn
A night of original songs and stories!
following the infamous Brooklyn Ukulele Meetup, hosted by Katie Down.
w/Julie Rozansky, bass
Brendan Taffe's original shape-note and appalachian ballad-inspired close harmony songs are the real deal. Featuring Wheaton Squier; Brendan Taaffe Rachel Gordon; Addie Rose Holland; Ashlynn Manning; Leighanne Saltsman and Mia Bertelli
March 29th, 2015
The Bright Wings Chorus
Hubbard Street Music
Concord, MA
March 28th, 2015
The Bright Wings Chorus
OLD MEETING HOUSE
East Montpelier, VT
March 27th, 2015
The Bright Wings Chorus
NEXT STAGE ARTS
Putney, VT
March 29th, 2015
The Bright Wings Chorus
Hubbard Street Music
Concord, MA
March 28th, 2015
The Bright Wings Chorus
OLD MEETING HOUSE
East Montpelier, VT
March 27th, 2015
The Bright Wings Chorus
NEXT STAGE ARTS
Putney, VT