Leaha Maria Villarreal

Leaha Maria Villarreal is a composer and administrator specializing in the arts and academia. Previous organizations served include the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Figment Arts Festival, Salastina, Aspen Music Festival and School, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and Columbia University in the City of New York. She is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Hotel Elefant, a New York based ensemble dedicated to the music of living composers. She is currently pursuing a doctorate in music composition at the University of Southern California, where she also works in the Thornton School of Music's Department of Communications. Villarreal also holds a master's degree from NYU, where she studied music criticism with Allan Kozinn and composition with Julia Wolfe and Michael Gordon; and a bachelor's from UCSD in the composition studio of Steven Kazuo Takasugi and Roger Reynolds.

Photo by Cait McCarthy