Kendra Preston Leonard (BM ’96, Cello) has been awarded a residency at Yaddo to work on the libretto for Common Room, an opera with music by Jessica Rudman. Leonard has also recently been appointed as the Lyricist Mentor for the National Association of Teachers of Singing’s Mentoring Program for new art song and is entering her third year as Teaching Artist in Libretto Writing for Guerilla Opera. Leonard is the founder and executive director of the Silent Film Sound and Music Archive. Her current scholarly project is a book on race and gender in silent film music.