About Me: Leo Amadeus
Pre-Amadeus Productions
My marketing tagline these days seems to be “Actor, Writer and Musician” – it’s the most succinct way to describe what I do. During my high school years, I went to a performing arts high school: the Thrive! program in Perform Australia (which then became Perform Academy, and now unfortunately doesn’t exist anymore). During this time, I developed an insatiable thirst for acting and performing. I love telling stories and have been particularly inspired by my dad, James Scott, who is the best actor I know of and a great storyteller. My mum’s pretty cool, too. She writes novels and plays (sometimes for my dad or me to act in!) and combined they both know how to run a business.
In 2016, I started playing songs by ear on the thirty-year-old retro lightweight Casio keyboard we had. My mum saw the potential in me and decided that I should take piano lessons. So, I did. She insisted that I continue taking them, especially when I least wanted to do them. I’m very grateful, because if I hadn’t taken lessons for as long as I have now, then I would be nowhere near the musician I am today.
I took piano lessons with Rebecca Simon, the President of the ACT Keyboard Association, and she was the person who (eventually) managed to drive the “clompity-clomp” out of my piano playing. Under her tutoring, I gained an appreciation of classical music (especially romantic-era music!) and jazz. I also completed a Grade 8 Certificate in Piano with AMEB.
I took singing lessons with Tobias Cole, Australia’s leading countertenor, and with him worked on creating a more classical foundation to my singing voice. Today I still work with him quite frequently in choirs and other classical music performances, as well as the rest of his talented family, Marcel, Katie and Jesse.
In 2020, I started my YouTube channel, which was called Doctor Penguin. This was because I liked Doctor Who and penguins. I started experimenting with a cappella music covers, and did quite a few over 2021 and 2022. When 2023 rolled around, I lessened my activity on my channel, due to school restrictions (I completed a Certificate IV in Acting and started an Advanced Diploma of Performance, which took up a lot of extra time outside of school hours).
When I Started Taking Things Seriously (but not really)
After experimenting with MuseScore from 2018-2021, in 2022 I started composing my first album, entitled “These Past Few Years.” If you know anything about me, you know I don’t usually do small projects, and so this was a mega-album of three parts and forty-five pieces. Throughout 2023, I worked on recording the pieces at various studios, and rendering the orchestral pieces using MuseScore. Finally after mixing them all in the first two months of 2024, the album was finally finished in its entirety. On the 27th of July, 2024, I released it on Spotify, with a live album launch at Smith’s Alternative featuring a nine-piece band.
Somewhere along the way, I started studying a Certificate IV in Acting, which I completed in July of 2023, and an Advanced Diploma of Performance, which I’m due to complete in December of 2024. Through this, I performed in shows such as Blabbermouth, Godspell, Twelfth Night and more.
I also began regularly musical directing some of the children’s musicals at Perform Australia.
In August of 2024, I performed with National Opera in their production of The Merry Widow as Njegus.
In 2023, I had an idea for a silly five-minute absurdist sketch. This sketch grew into two sketches, then three, then five, and then culminated into a forty-minute short film. Throughout December of 2023 and January and February of 2024, I worked on shooting this film with the actors I had hired. The film had a live premiere at Smith’s Alternative on the 9th of October, 2024.
In 2023 and 2024, I continued writing music, and developed my love for comedy songs, writing pieces such as “I Could Never Get Married (To Your Wife)” which I performed at my brothers wedding, “Mice in My Roof,” and the fan-favourite of “I Can’t Perform Classical Music.” I’m currently in the process of writing an album which will be (hopefully!) recorded in January of 2025 and released in February, followed by a series of live concerts later in the year.
I have many more projects in store for the future – some are big projects, and (believe it or not) there are a couple little projects, too! Stay tuned. Maybe consider signing up for my newsletter.