Leigh Pilzer (baritone saxophone) is a native of the Washington, DC metropolitan area. She began her musical studies on piano and cello, switching to saxophone after hearing the Count Basie Orchestra. She attended Berklee College of Music where she majored in Jazz Composition and Arranging. At Berklee she studied with a number of great musicians including Greg Hopkins, Herb Pomeroy, Joe Viola, and Jimmy Mosher.
After graduating from Berklee Leigh returned to Washington, where she has been working as a freelance performer since. Her performing experience includes backing such artists as Mel Torme, Nancy Wilson, Harry Connick, Natalie Cole, Maureen McGovern, The Temptations, and the Four Tops.
She performs regularly with the National Symphony Orchestra, appearing at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Wolf Trap Farm Park, Carter Barron Amphitheater, and on the televised programs "The National Memorial Day Concert" and "A Capitol Fourth". She has traveled with the orchestra to Austria, Germany, Holland, and France, and to cities across the United States.
Other experiences in Washington include performances at Blues Alley, the Kennedy Center Opera House, the Barns at Wolf Trap, the Millennium Stage, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. She is a member of the DIVA Jazz Orchestra and has played with the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra. She has recorded with DIVA, Bruce Gates Jazz Consortium Big Band, Chuck Brown, Eva Cassidy, and Lynn Roberts, among others.
Her arrangements have been played by the Commodores, the Army Blues Jazz Ensemble, the United States Marine Band, and by two United States Army Field Band units: the Jazz Ambassadors and the Embassy Brass Quintet. In June, 2003 Leigh was the featured arranger and soloist with the UFRJazz Ensemble in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Leigh holds Masters degrees in Jazz Studies and Saxophone Performance, both earned at the University of Maryland in College Park. She is a member of the Jazz Studies faculty at UM, teaching Jazz Theory and Jazz Arranging.