From Composition to Completion, Vericol’s Leo Discenza Orchestrates Success for Our Clients

Recently promoted to Consultant, Leo Discenza plays a key role in driving Vericol’s proposal success. Leo brings a unique blend of writing expertise and creativity to every engagement, delivering sharp, high-impact content from planning through production.

A graduate of Northwestern University with a degree in Composition, Leo channels the same focus and precision that defines great music into every project, helping Vericol compose proposals that hit the right note.

Read below for Leo’s full Q&A:

How did you first get into music? Was composing always something you saw yourself doing?

I first got into music through singing in choirs. Choral music was my favorite thing as a kid, and I always wanted to do it at a higher and higher level. Once I joined an especially challenging choir with more interesting repertoire, composing followed naturally. When I was around 14, I remember the sounds of Herbert Howells and Jonathan Dove in particular inspiring me to write my own music. My first piece was way too ambitious: a two-movement composition for full choir with divisi and organ. My choir director at the time saw potential and guided me in the right directions, including toward lessons and summer programs. I learned a lot from my teachers, but I always found the most joy in experimenting on my own, learning from pure trial and error.

Was there a moment when you thought, “Yep, this is what I want to do”? Or did it happen gradually?

It was very gradual. Despite being extremely committed to classical music in high school, I still wasn’t 100% sure I wanted to focus all my energy on it in college. I came into Northwestern as a dual degree student, adding in psychology. However, each successive music class I took proved a little more to me that I loved honing my skills in music composition. I also had the chance to sing in the best choir of my career there, as well as gain experience in conducting ensembles. It was all very exciting to me.

What’s it like to take the lead in a musical ensemble? Any favorite memories from being up front?

It can be so rewarding to conduct an ensemble, especially if it’s full of people you like and respect. My absolute favorite moment conducting was the very first rehearsal preparing for my senior recital in college, which I was doing jointly with one of my best friends, another composer. We had gathered a group of singers to perform our choral music, which included some of the most talented singers at the school, but also students who weren’t even studying music and just loved to sing. That first rehearsal, I stood at the front and addressed the room, and everyone was looking at me with excitement, contentment, and pride. I realized the time I’d spent in college forming relationships with not only talented, but kind and generous people was paying off hugely in that moment. Throughout the rehearsal process and finally in our performance, that group was one of the most attentive and responsive ensembles I had ever seen, despite the varied experience levels. I felt honored and extremely fulfilled to conduct them on my music and my friend’s.

Do you feel like your music background shows up in your day-to-day work in any unexpected ways?

Yes—one thing I love about composing is the development process, both of the piece I’m writing and of my own skill. I notice that the same strategies I use to review my compositions at each draft stage and constructively criticize to make them better, I use daily for proposals. This includes the ability to change perspectives. In composition, you need to be able to hear your own music from many different metaphorical angles in order to understand how it comes across to audience members. You need to strengthen the message you’re trying to convey even with 100 different points of view receiving it. It’s the same for any other type of writing. I use the skill of switching perspectives, zooming in or out, and considering the audience all the time while drafting and reviewing proposal content. I’ve also found that after learning to write clearly and concisely using pitches, rhythms, timbres, and dynamics, it’s much, much easier to do so using regular words.

Is there a piece you’ve written or performed that really means a lot to you? What’s the story behind it?

Of course there are many, but one that I’ll share is “An Equilibrium of Forces,” a piece I wrote during Spring of 2020 to be recorded and put together virtually. Lockdown due to COVID-19 was, unsurprisingly, a challenging time for musicians. It cost me a full year of in-person music making during college, which was a lot to grieve. I wrote this piece in the midst of the uncertainty of it all, and I had my friends record it and send their parts back to me so that I could edit it all together. I was proud of the result, but I felt sad thinking about how much better it would feel to sing it in person, where we could tune to each other and hear the reverberations of the room we were in. In the meantime, the piece became a part of my lockdown soundtrack—I sang it while watching the leaves blow in the wind and played it on piano when I had nothing else to do. The text, from Elizabeth Cady Stanton about nature’s effort to balance itself, felt extremely hopeful during a scary time.

Luckily for me, that piece became a favorite of my friends, and two full years later, I was able to program it on my senior recital. Singing it then felt just as great as I’d hoped, and it wasn’t just the beauty of the music. It was like a confirmation that things DO balance out; we go through hard times, but loss is never final, and grief is not the end of the story. Nature may always give us something in return.

The recording below is from our in-person performance, sung by myself, Stephanie Chee, Valerie Filloux, Adam Clayton, Zachary Kurzenberger, and Ian Morris.