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Leo Freire is a Brazilian born, New York City based drummer, music director, producer, and educator. His touring experience has included shows in some of the most prestigious festivals and venues throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. These experiences have resulted in a growing expertise in creating Ableton Live controlled rigs for both performance backing tracks and for integrating pads, triggers, and other electronic instruments into live show setups. He has worked and collaborated with artists live and/or in-studio including:

Wheatus (multi-platinum with "Teenage Dirtbag")

Flatbush Zombies   

Darryl “DMC” McDaniels (Run DMC)

Andrew W.K.        

Viktor Király (Hungary No. 2 Top 40)

Kate Nauta (Transformer 2)

Fly By Midnight

Hypodive (Fieldhouse/ BMG)

January Jane (BMG)

Isa Marina

My World (BMG)

Mike Doughty (Soul Coughing)

In March 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 crisis, Leo released a "virtual jam" video series where he edited a montage of himself playing drums to a video of legendary Queen guitarist Brian May. The video went viral, receiving an endorsement from Brian May himself, and shared on the official Queen social media accounts to more than 10 million followers. Leo's "virtual jam" video idea subsequently inspired hundreds of other submissions from music fans around the world "virtual jamming" with the Queen guitarist. Soon after, Leo filmed himself playing keyboards and piano to a video of Queen drummer Roger Taylor - and it was also shared by both the legendary drummer and the official Queen social media accounts to over 9 million fans worldwide.

Leo has maintained a prolific live touring schedule. With Wheatus, he completed multiple tours of UK/ Ireland, Europe, South Africa, and the USA throughout 7 years. Most recently, he completed the Summerland 2021 US tour, headlined by Everclear, while also featuring special guests Hoobastank and Living Colour. Other highlights have included sold-out performances at some of the world's biggest selling venues such as the O2 Arena London, Manchester Arena, and Wembley Arena.

As a composer, producer, and studio musician, Leo's work has been extensively showcased. He was credited a recording engineer role, in addition to drumming and singing on the 20th anniversary re-release of Wheatus' iconic debut album - which premiered with an April 2020 write-up on Rolling Stone magazine. Furthermore, Leo was featured as a composer and performer on the original soundtrack of the 2017 feature documentary "Black and White Stripes: The Juventus Story" (No. 1 in the Italian Box Office).  His versatility was again highlighted in his selection as the only drummer to appear on the Flatbush Zombies album release

"Vacation in Hell" - which reached no. 9 in the  Billboard US Hip Hop/R&B Albums.

Leo is also a passionate educator, serving as a faculty member of the acclaimed Fiorello LaGuardia High School of the Arts, where he was appointed the Director of Music Technology for 2022/2023. Leo also has an active and engaging private lessons studio, working with students of all ages and teaching drums, piano, voice, and music production. He completed his Masters of Arts in K-12 Music Education at Hunter College in 2015, being the recipient of the Agnes Duffy graduation prize for academic merit. As an undergraduate student, he graduated from the Macaulay Honors Program at Hunter College and was the sole recipient of the Libbie Van Arsdale Memorial Prize for outstanding achievement in music.

versão em Português

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