Neil Leonard
Matanzas Sound Map, Neil Leonard and Maria Magdalena Campos Pons - Installation at Tate Modern, East Tank (2025)
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Neil Leonard is a composer, saxophonist, and transdisciplinary artist. The healing power of collaboration, collective listening, and cross-cultural dialogue is central to his work. He maintains active collaborations in Brazil, Burundi, Canada, Cuba, China, Italy, Japan, Korea, Tanzania, the UK, and across the US.
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Recent presentations include performances at Donaueschinger Musiktage (2024) and the Venice Biennale (2024). His installation Matanzas Sound Map is currently exhibited in the East Tank at the Tate Modern was selected as one of 25 highlights from the collection commemorating the museum’s 25th anniversary (2025). His composition Notes After Lockdown (2024) for string orchestra and video, was commissioned by the Morningside Music Bridge Orchestra.
His compositions were featured by Carnegie Hall, documenta 14 (Germany), Musicacustica (China), the International Computer Music Convention (Canada), the Tel Aviv Biennial for New Music (Israel), Moscow Autumn (Russia), Museo Reina Sofia (Spain), the Jazz Plaza International Festival (Cuba), and in NYC at Roulette, Experimental Intermedia Foundation, Issue Project Room, and Knitting Factory.
Leonard's sound installations have been featured by Mass MoCA, Williams College Museum of Art, Peabody Essex Museum, Media Lab at MIT, Havana Bienal (Cuba), Bienal de Bahia (Brazil). Large-scale installations and performances with Magdalena Campos, Fujiko Nakaya, Phill Niblock, and Tony Oursler were featured by MoMA, Tate Modern, documenta, Venice Biennale, Whitney Biennale. Leonard's ensemble featured Joanne Brackeen, Terence Blanchard, and Robin Eubanks. Leonard performed and recorded with Juan Blanco, Alvin Curran, Richard Devine, Vijay Iyer, Phill Niblock, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Los Muñequitos de Matanzas, Robin Rimbaud (Scanner), Stephen Vitiello, Hal Wilner, and Amnon Wolman.
Leonard was a Sacatar Institute Fellow (2023), Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Artist-in-Residence (2016); Fulbright Specialist Award recipient (2016); M.I.T. Art, Culture, and Technology Research Affiliate. He is a Professor at the Berklee College of Music and the founding Artistic Director of the Berklee Interdisciplinary Arts Institute.
