William Leathers

Concert/Recital

WILLIAM FRANKLIN LEATHERS  is a young, gifted musician at the forefront of the classical trumpet music industry. Born in Mississauga, Canada, the 23-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 The Juilliard School, 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. He has performed with the New York Philharmonic Brass and the Cleveland Orchestra. He has also served as guest principal trumpet with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and he has served as guest associate principal trumpet with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

In 2022, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation listed him on their list of ‘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 chamber ensembles, including the American Brass Quintet, the Rodney Marsalis Philadelphia Big Brass, and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival Orchestra. 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 panellist for the Toronto Arts Council’s 2022 Music Creation and Audio Recording Assessment.

He can be heard on recordings such as ‘Deified’, an album by The National Brass Ensemble, and the soundtrack of the recently released movie’ Rustin’. Today, whether imparting knowledge in masterclasses, gracing the stage for a recital, or taking the spotlight as a soloist, William is consistently in high demand. 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.