“Leeds’ rich, attention-grabbing mezzo
had no trouble standing out from
the texture […] the performance
was lush and heartfelt.”
Biography
With her "vivid, deeply satisfying sound" and “rich, smooth mezzo soprano”, Kim Leeds engages audiences in her exploration of life’s essence through music. As a soloist, she has appeared with the GRAMMY® award winning ensemble Apollo's Fire, GRAMMY® nominated True Concord Voices and Orchestra, Gramophone award winning ensemble Blue Heron, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Choir, Bach Choir of Bethlehem, Piffaro, Oregon Bach Festival, Bach Society of St. Louis, Les Délices, Art of the Early Keyboard, Bach Akademie of Charlotte,
Chicago Master Singers, Cantata Collective, Ensemble Altera, Ad Astra Musical Festival, and the Handel Society of Dartmouth. Over the years, Ms. Leeds has garnered multiple accolades including winning the Tafelmusik Vocal Competition in 2016, attending the Carmel Bach Festival as a Virginia Best Adams Fellow in 2017, worked with Philippe Herreweghe as a Britten-Pears Young Artist in their Bach Cantata programme in 2019, and was a semi-finalist in the Lyndon Woodside Oratorio-Solo Competition in 2022.
Ms. Leeds enjoys performing a wide range of repertoire from Ockeghem and Dowland, to Rheinberger and Charles Ives as well as sung premieres of works by James MacMillan, Richard Danielpour, James Kallembach, and Julia Wolfe. As a choral artist, Ms. Leeds has toured with Helmuth Rilling in Eastern Germany as a member of the Weimar Bach Academy and toured Northern Italy and Southern Germany with the Junges Stuttgart Bach Ensemble under the direction of Hans Christoph Rademann. In the US, she has performed with GRAMMY® winning ensembles the Crossing and Apollo’s Fire; GRAMMY® nominated ensembles Seraphic Fire, True Concord, and Clarion Choir; as well as the Oregon Bach Festival, Musica Sacra, Handel and Haydn Society and Ensemble Altera. Ms. Leeds is also a co-founder of the New England based ensemble Filigree.
In her hometown of Boston, Ms. Leeds has appeared as a soloist with the Commonwealth Chorale, Cantata Singers, Music at Marsh Chapel, and the Society for Historically Informed Performance. In addition, she can be heard on the 2017 Boston Modern Orchestra Project’s recording of Jeremy Gill’s “Before the Wresting Tides” and Blue Heron’s “Johannes Ockeghem: Complete Songs” Vol. 1 and 2. Ms. Leeds holds degrees from Mannes College of Music and the Boston Conservatory.
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