Allison Leyton-Brown
Composer
Bio
Allison Leyton-Brown is an award-winning composer, pianist, and Musical Director based in New York City. Allison has written countless scores for TV, film, theater, podcasts and other media. Allison is currently composing for renowned podcast series This American Life (WBEZ Chicago), the highly anticipated horror-fiction series Dolores (Gimlet) and the upcoming fourth season of Masters of Scale (Wait What). Other recent and upcoming podcast scores include The TED Interview, Pop Up Magazine, Library Talks (NY Public Library), Stranglers (Earwolf) and The Room Where It’s Happening (Earwolf).
Allison is thrilled to return to Duke University as a visiting artist. She previously composed score and songs for their production of Bob: A Life in Five Acts, Exit the King and The Trojan Women, all directed by Ellen Hemphill. For NC company Archipelago/CINE, Allison has composed scores for their short films It Had Wings, Chair, and Manicotti. She has composed numerous works of music-theatre, including several with Archipelago Theatre (The Narrowing, Out of the Blue, The Woman in the Attic) and six shows with playwright/librettist Sophia Chapadjiev. Upcoming, their musical triptych Mouth Pieces will receive a full production at Wagner College, NY.
Allison works regularly as a Musical Director, arranger, band-leader and recording pianist. Most recently, she musically directed and arranged the score for WNYC/Earwolf’s popular podcast The Longest Shortest Time, and Fogg Theater’s Bottle Shock: The Musical in California. Other of her numerous M.D. credits include Tennessee Williams: Words and Music – a touring production and CD featuring Alison Fraser, Cedar City Falls – an 8-week theatrical serial written by Liz Tucillo (He’s Just Not that Into You), and the concert of comedian Lewis Black and Rusty Magee’s The Czar of Rock & Roll. (She appears on Lewis Black’s DVD “Stark Raving Black”.)
Allison taught Composition and Music Performance at NYU Tisch School of the Arts for nine years and now has her own private studio in Brooklyn, NY. She has lectured internationally on her own work and given master classes on Musical Theater and Music Composition in a dramatic context. Allison is on the steering committee of the NY chapter of the Society of Composers and Lyricists (The SCL). She can currently be seen fronting her own trio (The ALB Trio) at different venues in New York City.
Engagement Information
Longtime collaborator of Professor Ellen Hemphill, Allison Leyton-Brown returns to campus to compose transitional music and arrange traditional music for the mainstage production of Dancing at Lughnasa.