Francesca Leo is a cutting-edge flutist, performing arts health advocate, and arts administrator. She has given solo and chamber performances internationally, appearing as a soloist with the Chamber Orchestra of the Springs, the New Albany Symphony Orchestra, and the Manhattan School of Music Chamber Sinfonia. Leo has won first prize in many competitions including the Manhattan School of Music Eisenberg-Fried Concerto Competition, the Central Ohio Flute Association Young Artist Competition, the New Albany Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition, the Arizona Flute Society Adult Competition, and the Chamber Orchestra of the Springs Emerging Soloist Competition, and was a semi-finalist in the 2022 William C. Byrd Young Artist Competition.

An advocate of contemporary music, Leo has performed new works for the flute at the Society for Composers International (SCI) and the Society for Electroacoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) Conferences, where her performance won a recording spot on the 2018 Music From SEAMUS, Vol. 27 CD. She has worked closely with composers including George Lewis and Mario Diaz de Leon and has premiered many works in solo, chamber, orchestral, and operatic settings including the Mid-American premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s opera Émilie. As an orchestral musician, Francesca has appeared as a guest musician with Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Perrysburg Symphony Orchestra and has worked with renowned conductors including Roderick Cox, George Manahan, Enrico Lopez-Yañez, and Leonard Slatkin, among others.

In addition to performing, Leo has conducted research on the prevalence of performance-related injuries and the stress connection in collegiate musicians and is the founder of playingwithoutpain.com, an award-winning web resource providing musicians with information to treat and prevent performance-related injuries. She is a Licensed Body Mapping Educator Trainee, holds a 50-hour Meditation Teacher Certification, and regularly incorporates trauma-informed practices into her teaching.

Leo has presented her research at various institutions and conferences across the United States including the Australian Society for Performing Arts Health Conference, the MMEA Conference, West Virginia University, the Utah Flute Association, the Mid-Atlantic Flute Convention, the Flute Society of Greater Philadelphia Festival, and the NAfME Eastern Division Conference, among others. She is a past member of the Board of Directors for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Wood County and currently serves as the Chair of the National Flute Association Performance Health Care Committee and as a member of the Performing Arts Medicine Association Young Professionals Committee. Furthering her background in research, she has also served as a Research Assistant in the University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine Interdisciplinary Research Lab.

An arts administrator, Francesca works full-time as the PR Coordinator for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Her educational background includes a masters degree in Classical Flute Performance from the Manhattan School of Music as a former Joseph F. McCrindle scholarship recipient, a bachelors degree in Music Performance and Entrepreneurship from Bowling Green State University (BGSU), and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from BGSU. Francesca’s primary teachers and mentors include Linda Chesis, Conor Nelson, Jeffery Zook, Terri Sanchez, and Amy Likar.