Leah Coloff is a Grammy winning cellist, singer/songwriter, composer and creator. Raised near Seattle, Washington, her classical roots collide with 70’s rock and a pioneer spirit creating her self-identified style, CLUNK (Classical + Punk) with songs and works that are honest, sensual, funny, brutal, pissed-off, beautiful and chilly sweet.
Leah’s most recent venture combining music and performance, Super Second Rate, a one person show mixing various genres of music, songwriting and storytelling, debuted at Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2024 and was dubbed “highly recommended.” Fringe Review stated , “The music ebbs and flows, as do the stories. She is a vibrant and captivating storyteller.” And Edinburgh Festivals Magazine declared, “I would happily listen to this soundtrack that pushed my perceptions of how a cello can fit within different musical genres.”
ThisTree, Leah’s multimedia autobiographical song cycle weaving song, idyllic childhood memories, unanswered questions and a roller coaster ride of fertility treatments, premiered in the 2019 Prototype Festival. The New York Times declared ThisTree, “…forbidding stuff, but Ms. Coloff’s touch is light, her presence warm- She is, simply, honest.” The classical ICareIfYouListen expressed, “Coloff’s ability to merge the private and the collective allowed the entire piece of music-theater to become genuinely sincere without being overly sentimental.”
In addition to her own creations, Leah is a professional cellist recently winning a Grammy for her cello playing with the Scorchio String Quartet on So She Howls, by Carla Patulo which won the 2024 Grammy Award for Best New Age, Ambient or Chant Album. Leah was a member of the 7 piece onstage band in Daniel Fish’s Oklahoma! from its run at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn to the Tony Award winning production of Oklahoma! Broadway. And she can be heard on the Grammy nominated Oklahoma! cast recording.
In the classical realm, Leah’s focus is on working with contemporary living composers including Philip Glass, Ted Hearne, Joel Thome and Michael Gordon. She was the cellist for Ted Hearne’s The Source, produced by Beth Morrison Productions for Brooklyn Academy of Music and REDCAT in Los Angeles and she can be heard on The Source (New Amsterdam), selected as one of the best classical recordings of 2015 by The New York Times and The New Yorker.
Leah is a regular performer and band member for the Obie Award winning the Secret City and cellist for the Scorchio String Quartet, featured on the Grammy award winning record, So She Howls and in the award winning documentary, Inside the Perfect Circle: The Odyssey of Joel Thome.
She has performed and recorded with numerous musical artists including Trey Anastasio, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Michael Cerveris, Rufus Wainwright, Lou Reed, Damon Albarn, Ziggy Marley, Linda Thompson, Dean & Britta, Angelique Kidjo, Nancy Sinatra and Mark Mulcahy among others.
Leah studied cello with Irene Sharp at The San Francisco Conservatory of Music and with Bernard Greenhouse at The New England Conservatory of Music. She learned how to play cello from her Dad, Lawrence Coloff.
Leah will graduate in 2025 from the Performance and Integrated Media Arts MFA program at Brooklyn College CUNY in Brooklyn, New York.
