Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, cellist Yuriy Leonovich immigrated to the United States with his family and has built a distinguished career as a performer, composer, editor, and educator. He studied with Stephen Geber and Robert DeMaine, as well as composer James Hartway, and earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music. A recipient of the Hope and Stanley Adelstein Prize for Excellence in Composition and Performance, he devoted his doctoral research to the cello concertos of Gaspar Cassadó, reflecting a longstanding interest in broadening the cello repertoire.

Leonovich has appeared in orchestral, chamber, and recital settings across the United States. His collaborations have included the Cleveland premieres of Khachaturian’s Concerto-Rhapsody with conductor Kimbo Ishii-Eto and Johan de Meij’s Casanova with Gary Ciepluch. As a chamber musician, he has performed with artists including Daniil Trifonov and Elizabeth De Mio, and he appears frequently in recital throughout the Southeastern United States with his wife, pianist Kristin Leonovich. In 2022, he presented the U.S. premiere of Camille Saint-Saëns’s Suite, Op. 16, in its orchestral version with the Bob Jones University Symphony Orchestra.

As a composer and arranger, Leonovich’s works have been performed internationally by artists including Robert Rearden, Massimo La Rosa, Brian Thornton, and Spencer Myer. His music has appeared on the Five/Four Productions and Naxos labels, including his Rusalka Fantasie on Kol Nidrei and Beyond: Lev’s Story, a tribute to cellist Lev Aronson. His transcription of Clara Schumann’s Three Romances, Op. 22, for cello and piano has become his bestselling edition.

Leonovich is also active as a music editor and researcher. His editions are published through YL Edition, Fennica Gehrman, Ovation Press, and Boma Brass. He collaborates with the Servais Society on Urtext editions of François Servais’s works and with cellist Martin Rummel on projects related to the music of David Popper. He has also contributed editorial work to the Cello Museum and maintains a blog devoted to cello repertoire and pedagogy. His longstanding interest in linguistics and philology likewise informs his work with historical sources and international repertoire.

An educator with more than a decade of university teaching experience, Leonovich served on the faculty of Bob Jones University for twelve years, including eleven as Assistant Professor. Alongside his cello teaching, he conducted the university’s string orchestra, coordinated the chamber music program, and taught upper-level courses in string literature, orchestral repertoire, cello pedagogy, and music theory. He has also served on the faculty of Clemson University and maintains an active artistic and educational presence throughout South Carolina’s Upstate community. His students have gone on to orchestral positions, teaching careers, and graduate study at institutions including the Cleveland Institute of Music and Michigan State University.

Leonovich performs on a cello by Michael Köberling and a bow commissioned from the late Roger Zabinski.