Leslie is honoured to be nominated for the 2020 Louis Applebaum Composers Award – Music for Young People.
Leslie has had extensive experience writing musicals for young audiences, and teaching and working with kids. She toured for many years with Prologue to the Performing Arts, and she also participated in Artists-in-Schools projects for both The Canadian Stage Company and The Canadian Opera Company. One of the COC projects culminated in a music theatre piece called A Hero’s Story, which was subsequently featured in a CBC documentary.
Leslie was Artistic Director of her own award winning Theatre For Young Audiences (TYA) company, The Children’s Trio, for over twenty years. While with this company she wrote, directed and performed in musicals for children of all ages. The musicals she wrote for The Children’s Trio include The Dog That Ran Away, Rumpelstiltskin, The Greatest Gift, the Dora Mavor Moore nominated The Princess and the Handmaiden, and the Dora nominated and Chalmer’s Award winning The Happy Prince.
Leslie’s TYA musicals have been performed across the country, and she’s been commissioned and produced by The Young People’s Theatre of Toronto three times. Leslie was also commissioned by Viva Youth Singers of Toronto to write a choral piece, The Best Years, to commemorate their tenth anniversary.
Here is a production of The Happy Prince, by the Highland Arts Theatre.
And here is a sampling from Leslie’s company, ‘The Children’s Trio‘.
Please go here to hear music from Leslie’s musical ‘The Greatest Gift‘.
Please go here to hear music from Leslie’s musical ‘The Princess and the Handmaiden‘.
Please go here to hear music from Leslie’s musical ‘The Best Years‘.
