**Rescheduled from Wednesday, October 18**
William Franklyn Leathers, a young, gifted musician on the forefront of the classical trumpet music industry, performs a recital of music for trumpet and piano.
William Leathers, trumpet, with Sonya Sim, piano
Program (PDF)
Walter Hall, 80 Queen's Park, Toronto
FREE
The master class and recital are made possible in part by a gift from Neville Austin.
Biography
Born in Mississauga, Canada, the 22- year-old has been noted for "the sparkling clarity" of his trumpet solos and has performed across Canada, the U.S., the U.K., and the Caribbean. A proud recipient of a Kovner Fellowship at Juilliard, William graduated in 2022 with his bachelor’s degree and in 2023 with his master’s degree.
In 2022, William won the principal trumpet position in the Nashville Symphony Orchestra and the Santa Fe Opera and has performed with the New York Philharmonic Brass, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra as guest principal trumpet, and the Philadelphia Orchestra as guest associate principal trumpet. In 2022, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation listed him on their ‘30 hot Canadian classical musicians under 30’. In the same year he was also invited to perform with the renowned National Brass Ensemble, composed of the finest brass players in major American orchestras.
William has performed with various brass ensembles, including the American Brass Quintet, the New York Philharmonic Brass, and the Rodney Marsalis Philadelphia Big Brass. In 2021, he received the Sylva Gelber Music Foundation Award and the following year was appointed to the Glenn Gould Foundation Prize jury and to the jury for the ITG Orchestral Excerpt Competition. He was also a panelist for the Toronto Arts Council’s 2022 Music Creation and Audio Recording Assessment.
He is a performing artist for Bach Brass and has also been signed to the trumpet mouthpiece company, Vennture Mouthpieces, where he is working in collaboration to develop a line of trumpet mouthpieces in his name that will be on the market soon.