Leo Coach

Applied Faculty, Ethnomusicology

Music & Communication Building, Room 323
l.coach@csuohio.edu

Leo studied harmony and composition with the noted Jazz arranger and author, Phil Rizzo, Karl Berger at the Creative Music Studio and with pianist Jaki Byard, formerly of the Charles Mingus group.

Leo has been the recipient of major grants from The ArtsLink/Sorros Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, Ohio Arts Council, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Slovenian Government for composing, performing, and special projects both in the U.S. and Europe.

Mr. Coach has over 30 years’ experience performing and composing music in a variety of different genres with musicians from Slovenia, Cuba, Brazil and South India. He has an extensive discography featuring many different genres from theater pieces for the CSU theater department, poetry collaborations, Latin Jazz and Salsa and Carnatic music.

Mr. Coach has also been associated with the Thyagaraja Festival of South Indian (Carnatic) music which has been held at CSU for over thirty years. In 2023 he was honored with the title, Seva Rathna by festival committee for his contributions to the Carnatic arts.

In addition to teaching courses in Ethnomusicology at CSU he is currently head of the Music Department at Ursuline College. He has lectured at: The University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia, The Otto Presern Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia, Ohio University, Athens, OH, Pima Community College, Tucson, AZ, Stifel Arts Center, Wheeling, WV, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN, and the Niagara Chapter of Ethnomusicology.