- [Announcer] In partnership with the Curtis Institute of Music, WHYY presents the following program.

(lively classical music) - My name is Alexander Leonardi.

I study organ and I'm in my third year at the Curtis Institute of Music.

(organ music) I didn't exactly start with organ.

Originally, I started playing piano when I was eight.

I spent about two years doing that, and it was at my mother's wedding that I heard the organ and I just immediately became infatuated with it.

I was like, "I have to play this."

At the time, I was in fact not tall enough to reach the pedals.

I was too short, could not reach them, but I still was insistent.

And so, that insistence has continued to this day.

I just, I have to do it.

So originally, I wanted to pursue engineering.

I was in my head, I was dead set on being a robotic engineer.

That was my passion.

But at the same time, my music teacher was saying, "You should really like apply to this pre-college program."

Well, it happened to be the pre-college program at the Julliard School, but I wasn't really fully cognizant of just how important that was at the time.

So I applied there first on piano, didn't get in, but then I applied.

They said, "You should apply on organ," so applied on organ.

And when I got in, thankfully, it was kind of just a light bulb moment of, "I'm gonna be a musician.

This is the doors of an open for me."

And I mean, I've always had that lingering thing of, "You know, well, I should probably have a backup thing," but now it's more so that you know, I know this is what I wanna do.

This is exactly what I wanna do.

This is the kind of work that I wanna be doing as an adult.

Practicing was something originally I wasn't a huge fan of.

You know, you learn about practicing and they tell you you have to practice, but they don't exactly tell you how to do it.

Your teachers just go, "Practice this segment."

And so you sit down and you repeat the segment until it sounds good.

And that just became a drag for me .

Over and over just repeating these things.

And it just wasn't fun originally as a kid.

But slowly, I've learned really just how practicing works.

It's just that it took me a very long time to get there.

My favorite part about being a classical musician has to be performing.

That is just absolutely the most fun out of anything I do.

Being able to get out on stage and be myself and put myself forward.

And to really just be open about who I am and to put myself forward and put my ideas forward and have the audience, you know, receive that and get feedback right in that moment.

That being said, worst part is scheduling.

I would say that the process of putting in your calendar, you know, "Oh, you have to perform this day.

You have to perform this day, you have to perform this day."

You forget about how many performances you agree to do until you then look back at your calendar and see you're performing for three days straight.

And it becomes a situation of just logistics of do I have time to prepare for all of these things or do I not?

It's not fun.

It's my least favorite part, I'd say.

Originally, it was a piano at my aunt's house.

I saw it and just, you know, threw my hands on the keys.

Because that's what you do when you're say at seven and you don't know how to play piano at all.

You know, you just make sounds.

But at some point, my grandmother came up to me and said, "Hey, do you wanna take piano lessons?"

And I was like, "Sure."

That is quite literally how it all started.

It was just kind of a chance thing.

I started taking lessons and they were just, you know, I just kept doing it.

I became so interested in doing this thing called music.

("Cello Sonata in G minor") ("Cello Sonata in G minor") ("Cello Sonata in G minor") ("Cello Sonata in G minor") ("Cello Sonata in G minor") ("Cello Sonata in G minor") ("Cello Sonata in G minor") ("Cello Sonata in G minor") ("Cello Sonata in G minor") ("Cello Sonata in G minor") So when I was very young, like one year old, something like that, I was diagnosed with autism.

I find it was often at the time, viewed as this boogeyman of, "Oh, your kid has autism.

They're gonna need so many support needs.

They're not gonna be able to live a normal life.

They're not gonna be able to do anything.

You know, it's gonna be difficult."

And, well, it was.

- Now without further ado, I'd like to introduce Alexander Leonardi to begin his performance.

Enjoy.

- I had to get a lot of therapy when I was younger to, to you know, help me work through a lot of the issues that autism presents.

And by the time I was, I wanna say seven, six, seven, really, I had enough skills at that point to really be able to socialize and to talk with people and none would know the wiser.

I was able to kind of be in a position where no one suspected I had anything going on upstairs, but they just didn't know.

(dramatic organ music) My parents made sure at a very young age to tell me about it, but never phrase it as a bad thing.

There are certainly a lot of struggles that I face and continue to face with autism.

But there's a lot of things that are so unique to autistic people.

There are these, you know, of course, we have hyper fixations, these immensely passionate interests in things that we just can't shake and that we just become so, so interested in.

(dramatic organ music) And I heavily believe the music is like my lifelong hyper fixation.

(dramatic organ music) We see the world just so differently and it's hard to articulate and to put into words exactly what that is.

And none of it would be possible had it not been for autism.

And to have these unique experiences, to have these unique perspectives on what it really means to live a normal life.

'Cause in my head, there is no such thing as a normal life.

Everyone's got their own little thing going on.

And, you know, it's caused a lot of problems for me, but ultimately I view it as something that is so positive for me.

It makes me who I am.

(dramatic organ music) (audience cheering and applauding) Curtis, for me, starting off my career here, I view it as the world's largest career trampoline.

The wonder about Curtis is that it's, you know, it's so open-ended that anything is possible here.

And whatever interest that you want to pursue, they will help you pursue that.

And I've been provided so many different opportunities and chances to play in different settings and in different situations that my interests of what I want to do have expanded so broadly.

And Curtis has afforded me so much direction as to what I wanna do.

So for me, what Curtis has provided for me is this launching off point where I can really pursue what I wanna do and have the tools ready and ready to use and ready to develop and ready to improve on the world stage.

(audience applauding) ("Concerto in A minor") ("Concerto in A minor") ("Concerto in A minor") ("Concerto in A minor") ("Concerto in A minor") ("Concerto in A minor") ("Concerto in A minor") ("Concerto in A minor") ("Concerto in A minor") After I graduate from Curtis, I plan to continue my studies with a master's degree.

Don't know where yet, but I plan to get a few different degrees.

One in organ and then probably one either in accompanying or conducting.

And just pursuing these little passions that I've developed over my time here at Curtis.

In 10 years, I would love to be a performing artist, to be out there touring, going around.

I'd love to go international with my organ performances.

I would ideally love to get into some sort of chamber ensemble.

To begin starting to do some recordings and performances with a chamber group.

And just getting experience playing with other people, which I just think is so special to me.

Other than that, I would love to pursue a career in academia.

I'd love to teach.

I think the one thing that organ needs most is more people interested and more people available to teach it.

And I wanna be part of that group of people that cultivates this rich history that the organ has and who cultivates a new wave of students and musicians and artists that see the beauty of this Titanic instrument.

I think I'd love to collaborate with Cameron Carpenter.

There's something special about his musicianship and the sonic possibilities that he's creating.

(dramatic organ music) I would love to work with him about doing, like organ duo.

It's a very uncommon thing, but with the touring organ that he has, it can be possible.

I'd love to do something with him.

He'd be very interesting to work with.

(dramatic organ music) I would personally not like to stay in the classical world.

I would definitely want to continue doing classical music.

I think there's so much possibility in it, but I feel like closing myself off to a whole different language of music, it's limiting for me and my creativity.

I would love to explore jazz.

I'd love to try and figure out how that all works and approach it from the perspective of a classical musician and, you know, offer my own sort of interpretation of what jazz is.

I'm also very interested in pursuing the world of electronic music.

I think there's something really similar to the organ in synthesizers.

There's a very similar language of not just having a sound and being pretty with it, but making the sound, creating this sonic landscape that you want.

And I think there's a lot of overlap between the two.

I'd say in the next three years, my career goal will be to finish up my master's studies on organ.

But to really, I think, lay the foundation of myself as the artist I want to be.

I wanna spend these three years leading up to then to develop my own blend of how my approach to organ, my approach to classical music.

And I wanna start showing the world now, not just in the oven, but out in public and showing people, this is who I am, this is what I wanna do.

I hope you enjoy.

I think I'd tell my younger self.

Hmm.

Don't limit yourself.

You're gonna think that, you know, you're being pushed in one direction, that this is the only way that things have to be, but it doesn't have to be.

Just because someone is telling you that this is the right thing to do and this is the way that you're going, doesn't mean that that's the only way you have to go.

Keep your options wide open, but don't be doubtful about why they're pushing you in that direction.

They want to see you grow that particular way.

And they have a reason for it.

Trust that, trust that process and keep with it, but never close off your options.

And to my future self, which is kind of interesting to think about.

Hmm.

To my future self, I hope that you're able to get through and do what you want to do and to be wide open about not just what you do, but who you are.

I really hope that you're able to, that we're able to really put ourselves out there, to be unafraid to be who we are and to be open about that and to be present with that.

And to show people and encourage people to be open in the same way.

(lively classical music)