Kendra Preston Leonard is the author of The Conservatoire Américain: a History , and Shakespeare, Madness, and Music: Scoring Insanity in Cinematic Adaptations, and the editor of the collection Buffy, Ballads, and Bad Guys Who Sing: Music in the Worlds of Joss Whedon. Her work has included French and American music, gender studies, music and film, and music and satire. Ongoing projects include work on Louise Talma, women in the studio of Nadia Boulanger, and music in Shakespeare. She was the recipient of a 2009 Visiting Fellowship at Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library for work on Louise Talma.

Selected Publications and Presentations

Books

Shakespeare, Madness, and Music: Scoring Insanity in Cinematic Adaptations, Scarecrow Press, 2009.

The Conservatoire Américain: a History, Scarecrow Press, 2007.

Edited Collections

Buffy, Ballads, and Bad Guys Who Sing: Music in the Worlds of Joss Whedon, Scarecrow Press, 2010.

Book Chapters

“‘The Status is Not Quo’: Gender and Performance in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog,” Buffy, Ballads, and Bad Guys Who Sing: Music in the Worlds of Joss Whedon, Scarecrow Press, 2010.

“‘The Future is the Past’: Music and History in Firefly,” in Space and Time: Essays on Visions of History in Science Fiction and Fantasy, ed. David C. Wright and Allen W. Austin, McFarland Press, 2010.

Articles

“Louise Talma's Christmas Carol,” Notes, June 2010.

“Silencing Ophelia: Male Aurality as a Controlling Element in Olivier’s Hamlet,” Scope, Issue 14, June 2009.

“‘Excellence in Execution’ and ‘Fitness for Teaching’: Assessments of Women at the Conservatoire Américain,” Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture, vol. 11, December 2007.

“Secret Rooms and Borrowed Pianos: Gaby Casadesus, Lucie Delécluse, and Franco-American Musical Preservation During the Second World War,” Women in French Studies: Selected Essays from the 2006 WIF conference, December 2007.

“‘Two Hard Etudes and a Schumann Number’: American Women, Repertoire and Mentoring in France, 1921-1951,” The Journal of the International Alliance for Women in Music, November 2007.

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Conference Presentations

“Music and Gender in Film Adaptations of As You Like It,” Shakespeare Association of America, Female Icons seminar, 1-3 April 2010.

“Passion, Devotion, Sacrifice: Reading Talma’s The Alcestiad,” American Musicological Society, Greater New York chapter, 3 October 2009; Society for American Music annual conference, Ottawa, 17-21 March 2010.

“Popular Song and the Post-Modern Burlesquing of Shakespeare,” Shakespeare Association of America, Shakespeare Spin-Offs seminar, 9-11 April 2009.

“The Origins of The Alcestiad: From Voi che sapete to Apollo’s Tone Row,” First International Thornton Wilder Conference, 2-4 October 2008, Ewing, New Jersey.

“Silencing Ophelia: Male Aurality as a Controlling Element in Olivier’s Hamlet,” North American British Music Studies Association biennial conference, 31 July-2 August 2008, Toronto; Music and the Moving Image IV, 31 May 2009, New York.

“Acceptance and Exclusion: Women in the Studio of Nadia Boulanger,” Society for American Music annual conference, 1-4 March 2007, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

“‘Two Hard Etudes and a Schumann Number’: American Women, Repertoire and Mentoring in France, 1921-1951,” International Alliance for Women in Music Congress, 11-13 May 2006, Miami, Florida.

“Women, Pianos, and War: Musical Education and the French Resistance,” The Third International Women in French Conference, 6-9 April 2006, Durham, New Hampshire.  

“Music as an Interpretative Frame in Four Hamlets: The Integration of Score and Text in Modern Film” with Ruth Benander, British Shakespeare Association Biennial Conference 2005, 1-4 September 2005, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England.

“Bounded in a Nutshell: the Limitations of Music as Guide in Almereyda’s Hamlet,” with Ruth Benander, 2005 Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association national conference, 23-26 March 2005, San Diego, California.

“Finding Mentors Abroad: American Women and their Musical Education in France, 1921-1951,” Society for American Music annual conference, 16-19 February 2005, Eugene, Oregon.

Keynote address: “Mademoiselle's Fontainebleau,” American Music Research Center, Fourth Annual Susan Porter Memorial Symposium, “Nadia Boulanger and American Music” at the University of Colorado at Boulder, 7 October 2004.

“Sviatoslav Richter and Rita: Art Music and Satire in Monty Python,” Britannia (Re-) Sounding: Music in the Arts, Politics, and Culture of Great Britain, the first biennial conference of the North American British Music Studies Association conference, 18-19 June 2004, Oberlin, Ohio; Midwest Popular Culture Association Annual Meeting, 15 October 2005, St. Louis, Missouri; American Musicological Society South-Central Chapter meeting, 8-9 April 2005, Bowling Green, Kentucky.

“Secret Rooms, Borrowed Pianos, and Les plus grands musicians du moment : Gaby Casadesus, Lucie Delécluse, and Franco-American Musical Exchange during the Second World War,” American Musicological Society Midwest Chapter meeting, 20 September 2003, Chicago, Illinois; Society for American Music annual conference, 11 March 2004, Cleveland, Ohio.

“At Home in Exile: The Conservatoire Américain de Fontainebleau during the Second World War,” Pacific Northwest Graduate Students Conference, University of Victoria, 13 October 2001, Victoria, British Columbia.

“A Brilliant Beginning?: The First Decade of the Conservatoire Américain de Fontainebleau,” Society for American Music annual conference, 24 May 2001, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad.

“The Founding of the Conservatoire Américain de Fontainebleau,” University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music Friday Forum Lecture Series, 2 June 2000, Cincinnati, Ohio.

“The Founding of the Conservatoire Américain de Fontainebleau: New Research into its Goals and Ambitions;” American Musicological Society New England Chapter meeting, 8 April 2000, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Invited Lectures

"Listening to Lady Macbeth," Bryn Mawr Film Institute, 9 February 2010.

Keynote address: "Music in Twelfth Night," seminar on Twelfth Night, American Shakespeare Center, 16 January 2010.

“Passion, Devotion, Sacrifice: Reading Talma’s The Alcestiad,” Beinecke Fellow lecture, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, 25 September 2009.

“Musicology on the Side,” American Musicology Society Annual Meeting, Committee for Career-Related Issues, 14 November 2003, Houston, Texas.