Justine Leichtling

Part composer, part violinist, and part psychologist, Justine Leichtling is on a mission to (re)connect us to our deepest emotions. So much gets between us and our feelings—fear, judgement, shame, etc. Leichtling aims to forge a musical path through this thicket of self-doubt to illuminate what truly lives within us. In constant creative dialogue with her inner and outer worlds, Leichtling’s music exists in the space between these worlds where emotions not only make sense, but they give our lives meaning. Her unabashedly emotional aesthetic layers different sonic textures to evoke the raw sounds of our beautiful/ugly/tragic/joyous/hysterical human condition.

While there are many sides to Leichtling’s work, the throughline is her commitment to capturing emotional truth through sound to create an authentic picture of human experience. This focus also characterizes her work as a clinical psychologist. Her dissertation, If Music Be the Food of Relationships, Play On, describes her research on the role of music in fostering emotional connections between people. As a doctoral student in Psychology, she won Section V of the American Psychological Association’s essay contest for her paper, The War on Error. This work presents a feminist critique of the U.S. military’s use of torture post 9/11, exposing how trauma leads to the erasure of genuine emotion and underscoring our duty to regain that which is real and human.

As an artist, Leichtling has been called upon to bring her incisive lens to a diverse range of projects. Her silent film score for the classic short film The Violin Maker of Cremona was selected for the Accordo Silent Film Festival, where it was performed live in May 2024. Leichtling was awarded a residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in June 2024, which led to two commissions by performers who were drawn to her boldness of expression. In the artistic exploration of psychological themes, Leichtling does not hold back. Her recent work, It’s Not Your Fault for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano (premiered last August by Unheard-of Ensemble) is an ode to survivors of childhood trauma. In Play/thing for string quartet and toys (premiered by the Rhythm Method Quartet in August 2024), Leichtling delves into the consequences of disrupted childhood creativity, as well as the possibility of regaining lost playfulness to rediscover oneself. Her piece Stand Clear of the Doors for piano trio and audio-visual media premiered in New York in February 2024 and depicts a physical and emotional journey from a situation of being trapped to one of freedom. Another work, Controlled Burn for string quartet, was premiered at the LunART Festival in May 2024 and depicts the dance between destruction and creation that occurs in the redwood forests of her home state as well as within our psyches. One of Leichtling’s current projects, The Apps, is a chamber opera that uses the setting of dating apps to shed light on the epidemic of loneliness and isolation in modern society. She spent the month of June 2024 developing the music and libretto at a residency with the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

Leichtling is a member of several creative projects including Halva Duo (a collaboration with composer and keyboard player Alex Barsom), Dancing in Tongues (an art synth-pop band), and Mother Wound (an improvisational collaboration with two dancers). Leichtling’s current artistic interests involve incorporating electronics and microtonal elements into her music, both of which are reflected in her recent chamber work for violin, synthesizer, and voices entitled you see me see you, which was premiered in May by Halva Duo.

Leichtling’s ever-growing presence as a performer has expanded the scope of her creative practice in recent months. Over the summer, she participated in a performance of David Tudor’s Rainforest IV at the Darmstadt Summer Music Academy in Germany and performed as a vocalist with PART Ensemble. In September, she sang and played violin in the premiere of Plane in B, a piece for violin, bass clarinet, voices, and electronics that weaves together sound samples from inside an airplane with other acoustic and electronic elements. All the while, Leichtling’s enthusiasm for melding her voice and violin with electronic textures alongside her commitment to portraying the intensity of real emotions fueled the creation of Autopsy, her debut solo EP. Autopsy grieves the loss of significant relationships through a collage of vocalizations, string instrument colors, field recordings, synthesized sounds, and poetry culminating in an unapologetic breakup song. It will be released in 2026.

Leichtling currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Originally from San Francisco, Leichtling earned her BA in Computing and the Arts from Yale University, her PsyD in Clinical Psychology from the Wright Institute, and her MM in Composition from Mannes School of Music, where she studied with Mary Kouyoumdjian, Timo Andres, Gelsey Bell, Christopher Cerrone, Elliot Cole, Nathan Davis, David T. Little, Levi Lorenzo, Alyssa Weinberg, and Austin Wulliman of the JACK Quartet, among others. She also maintains an active psychotherapy practice. In her spare time, you can find her writing poetry, singing and dancing flamenco, or running in Prospect Park.