Veronica Leahy

Veronica Leahy is a New York–based alto saxophonist, composer, bandleader, and multi-woodwind player praised by DownBeat for her “harmonic erudition” and by Ted Nash for her “complex yet soulful improvisations.” A Juilliard graduate (M.M., Jazz Saxophone, 2026) and summa cum laude graduate of Harvard, she brings a rare versatility across instruments and genres, and aims to write music that operates on both a cerebral and kinetic level. She leads her own quartet, which makes its recording debut in May 2027 with Left to My Devices on La Reserve Records.

Veronica has performed with artists such as Terri Lyne Carrington, Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Kris Davis, Kurt Elling, Stew, and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, and is a regular member of the Ted Nash Big Band and the Birdland Latin Jazz Orchestra. Her appearances include Carnegie Hall, Rose Theater, the Village Vanguard, Birdland, and Dizzy’s Club, as well as the Tony Awards, The Late Show, and The Tonight Show. Festival credits include Winter Jazzfest, JAS Aspen, Ravinia (Steans Music Institute Fellow), and Monterey Jazz Festival. She appears on two GRAMMY-nominated albums, one of which won for Best Jazz Instrumental Album (New Standards Vol. 1).

Her compositions and improvisations blend storytelling, risk-taking, and deep listening, informed by work across jazz, classical, theater, and contemporary composition. She has written four full-length musicals, won the Radcliffe Doris Cohen Levi Prize for achievement in musical theater and is an Advanced member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. She currently holds a reed chair in the Broadway production Just in Time, a musical about the life of Bobby Darin featuring an onstage jazz band.

Veronica plays a Selmer Paris Supreme alto saxophone and Series III soprano saxophone.

Photo credit: Rose Lincoln & John Chase