The news out of Canberra is that rising star conductor Leonard Weiss has accepted an offer to study a Masters in Conducting at Peabody in the USA with Marin Alsop. Weiss, who is the current Musical Director and Conductor of the Canberra Youth Orchestra, the National Capital Orchestra, the Canberra Sinfonia and the ANU Choral Society, is expected to move to America next month.

The 2016 Young Canberra Citizen of the Year for Youth Arts and Multimedia, an ACT Finalist for 2016 Young Australian of the Year, and that same year the recipient of a Canberra Critics’ Circle Award for Music, his career highlights to date include conducting prestigious groups such as The Idea of North as well as musical soloists from the Goldner Quartet’s Dimity Hall and Julian Smiles (in Beethoven’s Double Concerto), MSO Concertmaster Dale Barltrop, and vocalists Teddy Tahu Rhodes, Tobias Cole, Paul McMahon, David Greco and Louise Page.

An advocate for contemporary classical music, he has conducted world and Australian premieres by composers from Philip Glass to Sally Greenaway, as well leading regional premieres of works by Carl Vine, Graham Koehne, Matthew Hindson and Natalie Williams.

Earlier this month, Limelight caught up with him to find out a...