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. She works in DC and Baltimore with many large and small ensembles. Other performing experience includes national and international concerts with the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, Sherrie Maricle & The DIVA Jazz Orchestra, and JLQ, a quintet she co-leads with trombonist Jen Krupa (www.jlqjazz.com).
Leigh's big band arrangements have been played by professional and college bands in the US, Germany, and Brazil, and by many of the DC-based premier military big bands. Her arrangement of "Pennies From Heaven" was recently recorded by Sherrie Maricle & The DIVA Jazz Orchestra for a CD scheduled for release in 2011. Her brass quintet arrangements have been included in Baltimore's annual Holiday Brass concert, and recorded by the United States Army Field Band Embassy Brass Quintet. Other writing credits include horn section arrangements for recordings by Chuck Brown and Eva Cassidy.
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.
