Leah Bowden is a percussionist, music educator, scholar and community organizer from California. She is the author of Max Roach and M’Boom: Diasporic Soundings in American Percussion Music, and is the official archivist for M’Boom co-founder, Warren Smith.
Leah holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of California, San Diego, where she was a member of the resident percussion ensemble red fish blue fish, directed by Steven Schick. During her time as a graduate student, Leah served as the inaugural board president and played drums in The Voices of Our City Choir, a performing ensemble and community platform for people experiencing homelessness. The choir has been featured in a PBS Documentary and competed in the semi-finals of America’s Got Talent. Leah also founded and directed El Otro Lado, an international percussion ensemble (USA-Mexico) that has performed and recorded her arrangements of the music of Max Roach and M’Boom.
Dr. Bowden is an active performing artist whose work encompasses solo, chamber and orchestral music, jazz, world music, popular and experimental musics. She is a founding member of Baby Bushka, an eight-woman band that performs theatrical reinterpretations of Kate Bush’s music, and is a key collaborator on Intersection, a site-specific interdisciplinary project directed by the painter Iva Gueorguieva in Los Angeles. She is also a founding member of The Forest, a cooperative percussion quintet based in New York, with fellow musicians Lesley Mok, Andrew Drury, Michael Wimberly and Gustavo Aguilar.
Leah Bowden’s performance and recording credits include extensive work with Steve Schick and red fish blue fish, The William Winant Percussion Group, The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), The Bang on a Can All Stars, Eighth Blackbird, members of Yarn/Wire and Sō Percussion, The La Jolla Symphony, WasteLAnd, Project [Blank], Nicole Mitchell, Wadada Leo Smith, Dafnis Prieto, Anthony Davis, Mark Dresser, J.D. Parran, Warren Smith, Karlton Hester, Mark Applebaum, Lewis Nielson, Chad Hamill/ čnaq’ymi, Bob Weiner, Jason Robinson, Gabriela Ortiz, Lisa Schonberg, Senem Pirler, Francisco Eme, Roberto Limón, John Colpitts/ Kid Millions, Corey Fogel, Carolyn Chen, Cosmo Gold, Secret Drum Band, Aa (Big A Little a), and many others.
A versatile and bilingual arts educator, Leah has taught music classes, lessons, directed ensembles, and presented performance workshops at UC San Diego, CalArts, Tijuana Cultural Center, the Autonomous University of Baja California, the University of Washington, the University of New Mexico, Amherst College and Bennington College. Dr. Bowden is currently an Adjunct Music Professor and Faculty Accompanist at Springfield College, where she teaches World Music, Music as a Form of Social Protest, and provides live musical accompaniment for Professor Sarah Zehnder’s dance classes.
Left: Dr. Bowden teaching World Music at Springfield College. Right: The Forest Percussion Ensemble in Brooklyn.
…more music can be found at the links above!
Leah Bowden 