Leigh Pilzer is a native of the Washington, DC metropolitan area. She began her musical studies on piano and cello, switching to saxophone after hearing the music of the Count Basie Orchestra. She attended Berklee College of Music where she majored in Jazz Composition and Arranging. At Berklee her teachers included Greg Hopkins, Herb Pomeroy, Joe Viola, and Jimmy Mosher.
After graduating from Berklee Leigh returned to Washington, where she has been working as a freelance performer since. She performs regularly with the National Symphony Orchestra at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Wolf Trap Farm Park, Carter Barron Amphitheater, and on the televised programs "The National Memorial Day Concert" and "A Capitol Fourth". She has traveled with the orchestra to Austria, Germany, Holland, and France.
Leigh's arrangements have been played by many of the DC-based premier military big bands and chamber ensembles. In 2003 UFRJazz Ensemble in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil presented a concert of Leigh's arrangements, also featuring Leigh as soloist. Recently, one of her brass quintet arrangements was included in the program at the 4th Annual Baltimore Holiday Brass concert.
Leigh holds the degrees of Master of Music in Jazz Studies and in Saxophone Performance, both earned at the University of Maryland in College Park. She is a member of the Jazz Studies faculty at UM, where she teaches Jazz Theory and Jazz Arranging. She is a member of The DIVA Jazz Orchestra and the Old Line Quartet, and co-leads a jazz quintet with trombonist Jen Krupa.
