~ DON LEONARDO ~
Concert Violinist

Those who enjoyed the musical, “Sound Of Music”, may have been thrilled by the amazing exploits of the Von Trapp Family Singers, who fled their Salzburg Concert and homeland to escape Nazi oppression during the Second World War. The story behind Don Leonardo is astonishingly similar, whose grandmother, mother and her sister had to travel by train in March 1938 from Vienna to Frankfurt then on to Amsterdam (In Holland), and from there took a boat across the English Channel to Dover and another train from Dover to London, so as to escape Nazi oppression during world war two. During the train ride they passed through Germany, and in Munich the police took every male passenger off the train, forcing Jewish passengers into cattle cars headed for concentration camps. Non Jewish men were inducted into the army. Young boys and baby boys were put into care until they grew old enough to join the army. Fortunately as Don’s mother’s father had left Germany several years earlier, he was not abducted from the train by the Nazis.

Don Leonardo, born in the U.S. and raised in Berkeley in the San Francisco Bay Area and later in Napa Valley, was chosen at birth by his mother Runa (and father Irving), to follow a musical career. Runa wanted him to succeed as a successful Concert Violin Soloist. A keen musician herself, she studied both the violin and viola, but felt unable to attain the high standard of a Concert Soloist, hoping her son would do this in her stead. Don showed great promise when only 8 years old. This, it was believed, could have been due to his very musical Heritage, which contributed toward the unusual advancement he attained from the relatively early age of 6.

Don Leonardo’s Grandmother on his mother’s side was Lilly Wexberg, who passed away in 1971. She was one of the greatest and most sought after teachers of operatic singing in the world. Her students and associates included world-renowned names such as Beverly Sills, Leontine Price, Marilyn Horne, Maria Callas, Luciano Pavarotti and many others. She worked closely with Otto Guth, a close family friend who worked with the late Herbert Addler, a former director of the San Francisco Opera. Don’s Grandfather on his mother’s side, Leopold (“Erwin”) Wexberg, was a very well known and respected Psychiatrist who passed on in 1957. He loved music himself, was involved in many chamber music groups and also played the piano very well. On his father’s side, Don’s grandparents came from a small town named Pripet Marshes near the town of Pinsk in Poland, close to the former Russian border. But with their farmland sequestrated by the Communist Czar, his grandfather chose to immigrate to the U.S.

Don Leonardo has been the winner of many prestigious awards. The “Stillman~Kelly” award resulted in his being selected to appear as a Concert Soloist twice with the Northern California Youth Orchestra. As the winner over the western half of the U.S., he got an invitation to join this prestigious ensemble, initially as a violinist the first time, then later as a top violist from the Juilliard School of Music the second time. Don’s other awards have included one sponsored by the Pepsi-Cola Bottling Company of San Francisco. This brought him before audiences of thousands of people and resulted in his being selected to appear as a Concert Soloist twice with San Francisco Symphony Orchestra members. Don became recognised by musical directors such as Edo De Waart, Arthur Fiedler, Danny Kaye, Yehudi Menuhin, Kurt Masur and many other world-renowned great music directors such as James Conlon, Leon Barzin, Oscar Shumsky and James Levine.

Don Leonardo also worked under the baton of composers such as Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland and other world-renowned conductors and great musical directors of our time while in the National Training Orchestra in New York City from 1972 to 1977. Don has appeared with many well-known Conductors across the American continent and in Mexico. Don has worked in concert and been good friends with many well-known artistes such as Yehudi Menuhin, Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Ruggiero Ricci, Mark Kaplan, Zino Francescati, Stephanie Chase, Dong-Suk Kong, Felix Galamir, Alexander Schneider, Schlomo Mintz, Gary Shuster, Michael Tree, Lyn Harrell, Rafael Bronstein, Joseph Gingold, Laslo Varga, Janos Starker, Yo-Yo Ma and many others.