About Me: Leo Amadeus

  I, Leo Amadeus, am an actor, writer and musician. This encompasses all of my abilities, and I am ashamed to say that I cannot do anything else. Believe me, I tried. I am terrible at navigation, saving money and restraining myself when good coffee is involved.

  My journey as a performing artist began when I was 4 years old. I performed in a children’s play through Canberra Academy of Dramatic Art (now Perform Australia). I played a mouse, along with a cohort of other small children also playing mice. I had one line, “Apples will be tasty after the stale bread we had for dinner last night,” which I forgot on the night and I had to be prompted by the only adult onstage who was the narrator (and also my father – that’s right, at this stage I was a nepo toddler). This experience haunts me to this day, and I have taken extra special care to remember lines and lyrics that I sing to the best of my ability.

  I did not go to a regular high school. I went to Perform Australia from years 7-12. My years 7-10 were spent in a program called the Thrive! Program (later Perform Academy, later non-existent). Years 11 and 12 were where I obtained my Advanced Diploma of  Performance, thereby setting my career onto an unchangeable path, because I had a qualification in something that I had better use, or else it was back to school for me. And I didn’t really like school.

  I started playing piano in 2016. I desperately wanted to learn MEGALOVANIA fron Undertale on the piano, so I tried learning it by ear, and from that point my mother made start taking piano lessons, which I basically refused to enjoy until I was about 17. I broke down crying after completing my Grade 6 piano exam, thinking I did a bad job. It turned out I did okay. However, I still hated piano at that point, not to mention piano exams, and so I didn’t do Grade 8 until much later. I then decided that I did not have the time nor will to go further than that into the piano diplomas, because in my eyes it was only really for people who a) don’t have 7 regular jobs; and b) want to become concert pianists as their only career path. I wanted to do musical theatre and comedy.

  When I was recommended to do chamber music by my piano teacher (Rebecca Simon, the president of ACT Keyboard association), a whole new path opened up to me – because I was more interested in the choir that was mentioned in the info session for the program. This led to me meeting Tobias Cole (Australia’s leading countertenor) whom I then started singing lessons with, gaining a foundation in classical singing technique, and joining two of his million choirs around Canberra.

  My first album was called “These Past Few Years” and it wasn’t very good. In three parts, these 45 tracks were more portfolio builders and experimentations with music before I actually started to get good at it. There are also vain attempts at comedy which do not land – to the point where I call it satire to cover how bad it really is. The first two parts are entirely instrumental, and decent. The third part involves bad singing, bad mixing and maybe two good songs, and several good song concepts executed poorly. I wrote the songs when I was 14-15, and released them years later on the 27th of July, 2024.

  In 2022, I wrote music for my brother Will’s film, The Little Spinster, in which I had also acted several years earlier, when I was but a wee child in 2018.