Leslie Schroerlucke has many credits as both a performer and education. A student of the legendary clarinetist Stanley Hasty at the Eastman School of Music, she earned the coveted performer’s Certificate as well as a performance degree cum laude. She received a Master’s in Clarinet Performance from Florida State and a Master’s in Education from Boston University. She began her career as second and E-b clarinetist with the Florida Philharmonic, and the Miami Opera, and has since performed with many legendary musicians and conductors such as the Pittsburgh Symphony, Pasadena Symphony, and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. Her international appearances include opera and chamber music festivals in Italy, solo performances in Brazil and Yugoslavia, and chamber music in the UK.
Leslie is the Director of the Students and Affiliate Program at Assisi Performing Arts Festival, a 2-week music festival held annually in Italy each summer. Leslie is currently an adjunct faculty member at UC Riverside and Chaffey College. For 23 years, she was the band director at Chaparral Middle School, one of the America’s top 5% public music education programs as rated by the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM). She has conducted the Chaparral Middle School Wind Ensemble at venues such as Boston Symphony Hall, Chicago Symphony Hall, the Kennedy Center, Davies Hall in San Francisco and Segerstrom Auditorium in Costa Mesa, CA. She is a passionate and effective educator, curriculum writer, and arts advocate.
Leslie is also a composer. Her first composition, A Flower Triptych, for SATB choir was published and premiered in 2022. Her original compositions and performances can be found on Apple Music, Spotify and many other platforms. Her album Chakra Meditations is now available on Gumroad as is her faith-based Meditation Series, CALMLY.
Leslie is sound healing practitioner with certification from the International Sound Therapy Association, considered the gold standard in Sound Therapy. Leslie holds certificates in life coaching and meditation and has studied Reiki. She has a deep desire to share her musical and intuitive gifts with others and is fascinated by the therapeutic properties of music and sound and its ability to help shift emotions and improve physical and mental health. She hosts in- person and virtual sound baths to help woman destress, improve sleep, and deal with chronic anxiety. Leslie has led retreats and her music and meditation have been used at women’s retreats and wellness events. She has great interest in Christian formation and related practices with a focus on the spirituality of music and nature.
Music gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, life to everything. —Plato
She is a very serious musician and always performs to a very high level. In her music-making she displays a high sensitivity and flexibility to different styles and has a fine technical command of everything she is doing. In rehearsal she is very cooperative and works excellently together with her colleagues in the section.- James Judd, Conductor
When the Pittsburgh Symphony's E-flat clarinet player became indisposed and could not perform a significant part in Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5 at the orchestra's Miami concert last Friday, an emergency call went to the Philharmonic Orchestra of Florida. Music director released Leslie Gerbasi for the evening so she could assist the visitors. A substitute was found to take her place. Lorin Maazel, music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony, sent a message of thanks to Judd afterwards, calling Gerbasi's contributions "excellent." And Maazel doesn't use words like "excellent" loosely," Judd said. "We're very please that we could help."
Florida Sun Sentinel
I can say, without reservation, that Leslie is one of the finest, most versatile musicians I have ever had the pleasure of working with. She is a rock-solid orchestral section player, equally comfortable on material from Mozart and Beethoven (themselves quite different, in terms of “ideal” clarinet sound!) to late Romantic and 20th-/21st- century repertoire. An accomplished conductor herself, she is keenly attuned to matters of balance and intonation, and has truly been the rock of any the woodwind sections she has graced for me. She is an equally fine soloist, orchestral and otherwise. Just a few of the highlights that spring immediately to mind:
Her breathtaking lyricism in the solo passages of Copland’s Appalachian Spring – I have never heard a finer “Simpler Gifts”
Her cool elegance in the Andante of Brahms, Symphony No. 3
Her unbelievably, perfectly raucous rendition of the distorted idée fixe in Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique – bears special note because it’s for the E-flat clarinet, of which Leslie is a masterful player
Her soulful interpretation of Hindustani raga in Reena Esmail’s Testament
Her performance, as soloist, of the slow movement from the Finzi Clarinet Concerto -magnificent!
Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (totally nailing the glissando) and Nielsen’s Symphony No. 3, one of the most technically demanding pieces of the early 20th-centuury symphonic repertory
David Rentz, Artistic Director, Orchestra Collective of Orange County