Leslie Amper began her career with a critically acclaimed New York debut in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. She went on to delight audiences in Chicago, New York, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco as well as at Monadnock Music Virtuoso Piano Series and Chautauqua Institution. A member of New Hampshire Music Festival, she is also a frequent participant in Boston’s Emmanuel Music solo and chamber music celebrations.
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Amper took full advantage of a program in that city’s schools in which serious high school musicians were allowed to forego classes for a few hours each day to have adequate practice time and to take advantage of performance opportunities. Her principal Pittsburgh piano teachers were Patty Grossman and Natalie Phillips. She studied violin with Eugene Phillips and theory with Ralph Zitterbart. While in high school she participated in Centers for the Musically Talented on violin and flute, Taylor Allderdice High School Band, Carnegie Awards, Pittsburgh Concert Society, and Pittsburgh Symphony Youth Concerts. She volunteered for Ralph Hoy’s Recordings for Recovery and spent her summers at Chatham College summer music day camp, Interlochen Music Camp and the Aspen Music Festival. After two years at Oberlin College, Leslie Amper continued her studies at the New England Conservatory of Music with Rudolph Kolisch, Gunther Schullet, and Russell Sherman.
While at the conservatory, she won the first annual Jordan Hall Honors Competition and played Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 at the graduation ceremonies. As a professional pianist, she has returned to Pittsburgh for concertos with the Pittsburgh, McKeesport and Westmoreland Symphonies, recitals at the University of Pittsburgh, Shadyside Presbyterian Church and Rodef Shalom Temple, and lecture recitals at the Pittsburgh Piano Teachers Association and Carnegie Mellon and Duquesne Universities. Leslie Amper has been featured on Jim Cunningham’s WQED “Voice of the Arts. “
An acknowledged scholar and practitioner of contemporary music, Amper has recorded Andrew Imbrie’s Short Story for Neuma Records, which was chosen for the International radio broadcast, “Art of the States.” Equally adept at accompanying silent film, she has compiled and performed piano accompaniments for the Harvard Film Archives and for the Hollywood Dormont Theater Silents, Please! series.
As a National Endowment for the Arts solo recitalist grant recipient, she presented Messiaen’s monumental Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jésus in Boston, New York, Pittsburgh, and Washington, DC. Other performances include the musical component for the Smithsonian American Art Museum exhibition “1934: A New Deal for Artists “ which itoured the United States and the onstage piano performances in Peter Sellars’ production of Chekhov’s A Seagull at the American National Theater. Leslie Amper has been invited to present her multi-media piano recitals related to the visual arts at Frick Pittsburgh, the National Gallery of Art, New York State, Whatcom, Fort Wayne, and Oklahoma City museums, University of Washington, California State University East Bay, and in London England. In addition, she was the keynote speaker/performer for the International George Bellows symposium at the Columbus Museum of Art.
Currently teaching at New England Conservatory School of Expanded Education and at Wheaton (MA) College, Leslie Amper has lectured at Boston University and Currier House of Harvard University.
