the GILMAN & GONZALEZ-FALLA
THEATER FOUNDATION

Ray Leslee

1996 Gilman & Gonzalez-Falla Musical Theatre Award recipient. Mr. Leslee’s compositions for the theatre include Avenue X, The A Capella Musical (New York’s Playwrights Horizons), which won The Richard Rodgers Award, Los Angles Ovation Awards, L.A. Weekly Awards, Best Musical in Dallas and Austin, along with Philadelphia’s Barrymore Award for Best Musical 1997. “Rediscovering what musicals are all about.” – The New York Times. He produced the cast album of Avenue X for RCA Victor/BMG Classics.

He also composed and performed Standup Shakespeare, directed by Mike Nichols, and produced Off-Broadway by the Shubert Organization. In 1995, Ray directed Standup Shakespeare at the Folger Shakespeare Library, where he produced the cast album. It was produced the following season at The Alabama Shakespeare Festival and brought back to The Folger for a return engagement. “An ingenious patchwork of song and story.” – The Washington Post. “77 minutes of enchantment.” – The New Yorker.

Also, Off-Broadway, he created original music for Richard Greenberg’s The Author’s Voice and Peter Hedge’s Imaging Brad (for the Drama Dept.), Educating Rita (Steppenwolf Theatre), The Common Pursuit (Simon Gray’s Pulitzer Prize-winner), The Living Newspaper (Ensemble Studio Theatre), and Twelfth Night (Theatre for a New Audience).

Regional theatre credits include score for Tennessee Williams’ The Notebook of Trigorin (A Contemporary Theatre), Night of the Iguana (Alabama Shakespeare Festival), Little Egypt (Steppenwolf Theatre), As You Like It (Great Lakes Festival), The Beaux Stratagem (Studio Arena Theatre) and A Christmas Carol (Tennessee Repertory Theatre and San Diego Repertory Theatre, where he received a nomination for Backstage’s “Garland Award” for Best Score.)

He created music for The Last Enemy, a play produced by the United Nations that brought together Israeli and Palestinian actors for the first time – and for an international tour. Additionally, Mr. Leslee has scored films for French and Swiss television, and won Best Documentary Score for Andre Roch (a pioneering Swiss mountain climber.)

For ten years (1980s) he was a staff accompanist for The Martha Graham Company and The Alvin Ailey Company. His original ballet, Local Stops, was scored for live jazz quartet, and premiered at The Joyce Theatre in New York with The Eleo Pomare Dance Company.

As an 18-year-old rock & roll pianist, he toured with such legendary performers and Jay and The Americans, The Platters, Leslie Gore, The Shirelles, The Drifters, The Capris, Eddie Floyd and many others.

Mr. Leslee was educated at The Manhattan School of Music and The State University of New York at Buffalo (B.A. in Music and Theatre; M.A. is Humanities.) He is currently an adjunct Associate Professor at Hunter College in New York City. He has also taught at SUNY Buffalo, Purchase, and the University of California at Santa Barbara (Music Director/Dance Division.)

He has been commissioned by Meet the Composer, The Mary Flager Carey Charitable Trust, The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, and others. He has served on the judging committee for The Richard Rodgers Awards (American Academy of Arts and Letters) for three years.

Ray Leslee’s first symphony, Romeo & Juliet for Orchestra & Actors, had its world premiere with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, July 2000. “Leslee’s music is of a transparent beauty... melodious, with a bracing sense of drama... embracing the sweetness and captivating lyricism of Leonard Bernstein’s romantic utterances, combined with the directness, openness and fold simplicity of Darius Milhaud... a resounding success.” – The Buffalo News.

Mr. Leslee’s current projects include music for A Christmas Carol at the San Diego Repertory Theatre. It’s the classic Scrooge story set in a circus, and includes many circus acts. The SD Rep will repeat the show for the next 3 seasons. The SD Rep originated Ain’t Nothin’ but the Blues. Mr. Leslee’s symphony, Romeo & Juliet for Orchestra & Actors, will be performed by the San Diego Symphony in the summer of 2002. Avenue X will open in January 2002 at The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. The previous production at the Cincinnati Playhouse last spring was just nominated for Best Musical and other awards in Cincinnati. There have been some 35 productions of Avenue X since it was Off-Broadway at Playwright’s Horizon in 1994.