“Classical music is not an island. It’s not a planet of its own. It’s integrated into everything, and the existence of it is dependent on modernising the way we write it, the way we think about it — ultimately for me, the way we feel it.”
Paloma León
Paloma León is a Los Angeles-born, London-based composer and pianist. Paloma’s genre-bending work includes complex, memory-based piano works that both honour and subvert the rigour of her classical training; inspired by Ryuichi Sakamoto, Phillip Glass, and George Gershwin, as well as reimagining material drawn from pop and hip-hop. Paloma released her debut LP Piano Music for Movies in 2025; her work spans multiple disciplines, including scoring for fashion shows such as Saul Nash (Milan Fashion Week) and Daniel Del Valle (London Fashion Week), alongside television and film. Paloma debuted original compositions at the Royal Albert Hall, as part of the Music for Youth New Music Residency 2025, and has worked as a pianist at the Royal Festival Hall (BAFTA). She is currently artist-in-residence at Ladbroke Hall, London, curating multimedia concerts as part of the Piano*Grafik series; notable collaborators include GAIKA, Abi Asisa and y’Sohnt Nash.
Following Paloma’s Piano*Grafik concert at Ladbroke Hall in May with Abi Asisa, and ahead of her piano duo concert with y’Sohnt Nash on 16th July, we caught up over Zoom to chat about queerness in classical music, cinematic experiences, notation, yearning for connection, and more…
Header photo by Lauren Mason
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Zyggy/PRXLUDES: I first encountered your work through your Piano*Grafik performance at Ladbroke Hall last month with cellist Abi Asisa. Can you tell me about bit about how you and Abi first got in touch, and how the collaboration came about?
Paloma León: Abi and I met a long time ago, when I was working at a studio in Camden. I’ve always wanted to work with a cellist. I’ve always known there’s a natural cello counterpart to the kind of music that I write. I love piano and cello suites — I love the chemistry between those two elements. That was the seed that was planted.
I was at an industry party in Soho, and I was literally going up to people like a crazy person, like “do you know a cellist?”; and then I came across a mutual friend of ours, she was like “oh, my friend Abi’s a brilliant cellist”. So Abi comes to the studio in Camden… We didn’t do a single session, because her and I got on so well. We just talked shit for hours.
About a year later, we ended up in the same booth for the audiobook for Heathcliff — a Wuthering Heights spinoff by Gracie Oddie James — doing the score under GAIKA with Brain Audio. Our chemistry was really undeniable; it’s funny, because it was the first time we ever played [together]. I went back home to LA for a while, and I really thought I want to make a fully fleshed-out project with Abi, because that was a great experience. We started working together, developing our sound; bit by bit, all these moving parts [came together] — there was Ladbroke Hall, there was this place in Dalston we were doing stuff with. This natural ecosystem started building around our work. It’s been really exciting.
I know that you’ve had an artistic partnership with Ladbroke Hall for quite a while — how did that come about?
We’ve been collaborating together for a while. I did Daniel del Valle’s debut London Fashion Week show at Ladbroke Hall, and the programme coordinator — Alex Harley — came up to me after the show and was like “we want to reinvent our programming here, and we think your piano is a great place to start”. So Piano*Grafik was conceived as a series of monthly shows, sponsored by Steinway, with me as the pianist working with various individual artists.
It’s an entirely alternative route to classical music. It’s multi-medium, it’s cool, it’s a very singular event that is happening in London — but I feel like it scratches an itch that people have been wanting for a long time. I thought it was a bang on opportunity to get Abi and I involved. It’s really instrumental to my whole operation at the moment.
I get that. What really struck me about that Ladbroke Hall performance was the amazing community you both seem to be building through your art; you were bringing together so many different people — particularly people who wouldn’t usually see a classical or contemporary music concert.
It’s fun! People are really loyal to that space. It’s a niche community, and the people who know, know. Abi and I are really interesting when we join forces, because our classical scenes are parallel, but quite adjacent. We both work in similar fields: scoring, fashion… We’ve brought together this community that in my mind unites this sphere of people that should know each other.
It’s a dynamic scene here in London. It’s very queer — which I think is really interesting, and cool. It’s unearthed this really interesting side of the London contemporary music scene: it is held up by queer people. These are the people that are really doing this at that cutting-edge level: really trying not just to change it, but to reinvent it, to breathe new life into it, to cross-pollinate it as much as possible. This is the cutting-edge classical world and it is gay as hell. It’s awesome to see that in front of us — it feels so realised.
It’s true — we’re everywhere… -laughs- There’s something there, I think, about queerness as repurposing material or culture in a rebellious manner… People who don’t fit in creating new systems, new spaces where they can authentically be themselves. I think that’s what we’re seeing.
We are, 100%. This is who’s doing this. The opportunity for collaboration is rife. You know, y’Sohnt Nash — we’re gonna do a show together in July at Ladbroke. It’s such a vibrant, amazing [community] — everyone is just such a fucking character, you know what I mean?
I think wanting to queer something like classical music is very queer. -laughs- Classical music is seen as this very cerebral thing, but it’s actually this deeply emotional thing. This distilled music that moves you. What the queer community is doing, that’s very specific, is that it’s taking the perceived cerebrality of classical music and making it this very feelings thing — this primal, impulsive, breaking-all-the-rules.
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Let’s unpack your relationship with classical music. You’ve told me you come from a classical piano background, but you’ve had a complicated relationship to your musical training…
I’m gonna be honest with you — it’s something I think about and have to work through every day. If you told me I was gonna be a classical composer at 10, I think I probably would have jumped off a bridge… Seriously.
My dad was a concert pianist — really academic background, same graduating cohort as John Adams. I had two Russian [piano] teachers a week. The pedagogy was rigorous, it was intense. That was my introduction to classical music. I knew I always loved it on a listening level — I was in love with Chopin, Ravel, Mozart, the music moved me — but the process of learning I found excruciatingly painful.
My dad passed away when I was 12. That was when I stopped repertoire. But what happened was all the training, the toolkit, had built this incredibly known physical way of recreating classical music. What would happen was, I would sit down at the piano — going back to the scene of the crime, almost — and all of these ideas would come back, and I would reinvent them and play my own music. And my stepmum was like “shit, you’re a composer — that’s wild”. Very quickly, my sound became realised — and I fell in love with music as a means of expressing things that were completely inexpressible in other areas of my life. It’s been a very up and down, beautiful, tragic, weird journey.
You’ve also mentioned your interest and practice in genres outside of classical music has informed your practice…
My classical instinct comes from pop music. That’s the way I write classical music — with these pop resolutions. Pop music is classical music. Like Satie’s Gymnopédies, right? That’s where pop music came from — I can prove it. -laughs- What I do is, I take those distilled classical ideas from all walks of music. Like, Sky Ferreira is one of my great classical inspirations; Yung Lean is one of my great classical inspirations. It’s funny, because you listen to my music and you think “come off it”, but no — I’m being completely serious. It’s like double-recycling: those ideas have been recycled, and I filter them back into the genre. It’s just what comes out of me. It’s deeply informed by everything.
If you look at any of these genres, they’re never so far removed. Especially in the twenty-first century, all of these things are so interconnected.
They are. Classical music is not an island. It’s not a planet of its own. It’s integrated into everything, and the existence of it is dependent on modernising the way we write it, the way we think about it — ultimately for me, the way we feel it.
You mentioned you started composing these piano pieces when you were a teenager. More recently, you’ve collated a load of these pieces into your debut album, Piano Music for Movies — do you see this record as a kind of reclamation of your classical training? What does the album represent in your practice?
That record is crazy. I started writing that when I was 13 years old. It was created in the wake of loss; in the wake of me losing my father, which was intense. After my dad died, it was a really, really rough time. But when I discovered music again — I discovered this gift, I discovered this absolute connection — I felt like I was able to transcend this really earthly thing, right? It’s a very lonesome record, if you listen to it — but it’s very optimistic, too. There’s a cinematic quality that makes it very hopeful. It’s young, and it’s youthful; it’s this innocent kind of optimism met with the darkest force in life — which is death, to me. It’s a childlike standing up to something that’s overwhelming and dark.
I get that — like, a documentation of your life at the time, but cinematised, I guess.
I named it “Piano Music for Movies” because honestly, it’s what it sounds like. -laughs- My connection with cinema is so ingrained with everything I do. It’s always been a part of my life. I love movies — my inclination to score films has very much to do with my worldview and disposition. Rather than “I think I can do this thing professionally”, it’s like my whole philosophy of life into my work.
Do you know what it is about film or cinema as a medium that resonates with you?
I really think that beauty is what’s gonna save the world. I think that beauty is often the antidote to suffering. I’m a big beauty advocate. -laughs- I think everything is exceptionally beautiful, all the time; and [for me] you have to think about everything you do in this sort of frame-by-frame. Because that’s what cinema is. It captures life, but it allows you to see it almost outside of your normal day-to-day. Do you know what I mean?
I really think that every moment I’m alive, I try and capture these moments, these feelings — and I store them and feel them as if I am living life as a film. There’s music in everything I see. I think everything in my life has a score, inherently. I’m being completely authentic here… That’s just the way I live, how I feel things.
I’m also from Los Angeles. Movies, the movie industry, is the centre of the world. It’s the industry: it’s what puts food on the table, as someone from Hollywood. It’s ingrained in my psyche, probably. -laughs-
The medium is the cultural framework, so to speak. And I guess a cultural framework that feels more corporeal than the fragmentation we tend to experience online nowadays…
It feels like the shortform curse — the doomscrollification of everything — has completely fucking murdered the internet. It’s crazy. I was tumblr famous in high school, which was hilarious. I had a DSLR camera and I used to put knives in my freezer, and I would take pictures of my kitchen knives in my freezer and I’d #goth… I was around during a time when Frank Ocean came out on tumblr, and falling in love with a man on tumblr. The time with the internet was about connection — there was a time when the internet was about connection — and now it’s the most alienating landscape ever.
There’s a yearning there that’s become malignant. The yearning is this chronic illness people have all the time: everyone feels so much yearning for connection. Forget the classical music community — everyone. But it’s ironic: you’ve just got to get people in a room, and then they just have to talk to each other. They’re all there. There’s no shortage of genius in that space; it exists, and once it’s in front of you, it’s undeniable.
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Let’s talk a bit about your compositional process. You write a lot of music for yourself to perform — can I ask what role notation plays in your compositional practice, if any?
Notation has always been the nexus of shame, in terms of my relationship with music. Notation has been the thing I’ve struggled with the most. I’ve never enjoyed it. It was always lorded over my head by teachers, and my dad… I was never a good sight-reader.
I think I’ve come such a long way. You know, your relationship with notation has no bearing on how good of a musician you are. It’s really funny, because my music is quite “classical” — and from a publishing perspective, I do write [things] down — but my memory is always been good. I’ve written these pieces, and as soon as I know what they are, they stay locked in my head — and they have done for about 12 years, they’ve never changed. I’ve never felt the need to assign that language to them.
There’s this whole thing in composition circles about the “cult of the score” that I’ve never truly understood. Music’s there to be experienced, not to just be a piece of paper…
It’s never what music felt like, to me. I hate the way it looks; it looks like something no one understands. Frankly, I’m just not into it. I’m never writing a piece and think “god, I need to whip out Sibelius right now”. Also, Sibelius sucks. -laughs- Maybe if someone made something really intuitive, I’d use it…
I like coming back to it on my own terms. I did a debut show at the Royal Albert Hall, which was mental — and that involved me composing for a full orchestra, but in my own way. [A] big conflict with notation, as well, as that it’s a mathematicisation of music, and I really don’t like math. I don’t like when people say “oh, music and math go together so well” — I’ve never liked math, ever. In my scores, I will quite frankly write exactly what I want you to do, in English, and people understand! Especially when it comes to really specific things.
With the stuff with Abi, the chemistry between us is really special; we play music together like it’s a conversation that we’re having. We have the same ability to memorise things. The notation is few and far between, and it’s not that big of a deal — but our communication is our notation. Sometimes, very rarely, you’ll find someone who shares your entire vision — and that’s really what Abi is to me. We’re kind of on the same page about everything. In every way, we resonate; it’s like having a perfect collaborator, which is really rare.
Both in your mind and in your artistic practice — do you feel like there are distinctions between the “pop” and “classical” in your work? Do you feel they inhabit the same space?
There are no distinctions. The music is its own thing, it exists by itself. But the process is all very [much the] same; it’s this very holistic thing. Abi and I are writing what is, for my standards, a very minimal record — maybe it’s not very minimal, but Piano Music for Movies is, like, so technical. Me trying to have my Rachmaninov moment, my Gershwin moment… This is such a deliberate stripping back; trying to find these ideas that really work and distill them. I think it was Steve Reich who said something that I really love: that the point of minimalist music is about distilling. It’s not about diluting, it’s not about taking things apart, it’s about finding what really makes something good and then putting the microscope on that. It’s almost like purifying something. That’s the approach I’m taking with Abi.
The same pop logic that exists from this “out here” thing applies to absolutely everything I do, it’s present in everything I do. It’s present in the super-minimalist stuff, it’s present in the super Gershwin, maximalist stuff; it’s honestly like a worldview, a philosophy, more than a compositional practice. I think pop music informs the way I eat my breakfast, you know?
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Speaking of your collaboration with Abi, I understand you’re putting together an album recording the pieces you premiered at Piano*Grafik. Can I ask what your plans are for the record?
We’re in the process of recording it. I want to say it’s in its nascent stages, but it’s not — because it’s completely realised, everything’s been written out. I can’t wait to get the thing out. I think it’s such a special [album]. We’re working in collaboration with Steinway — the Steinway part is being recorded at Ladbroke Hall, which feels very appropriate — and the cello production [is] happening over at 160DL Studios, over in east London. It has various homes; and now we’re seeing who’s gonna get involved, what’s gonna happen. It’s very exciting.
I understand you also have another show at Piano*Grafik next month, with y’Sohnt Nash?
Yes, I do! Tentatively happening on the 16th July. That is a really interesting thing — I’m going back into my academia vibe — it’s like a live, improvised piano concerto, which is gonna be sick! It’ll only exist in that space — when it’s done, that’s it. It can never be repurposed, recreated. What I’ve been told is there are two Steinway pianos [in the space]: one is white, one is black. It’s gonna be nuts.
How important are those visual aspects, the cinematic aspects, when you’re curating a concert? How much do you think about the visual in your performances?
A lot. This is why I love Piano*Grafik so much. It’s exactly my philosophy of music and art in one thing: the two should coexist. As time goes on, what I’m interested in is bringing obscure artists, weird visuals, meaningful visuals… Really good, weird shit — and pairing it with this very classical sound. I think that’s a great way to shed light on both mediums, because they’re so contradictory. I want it to be a bit combative and weird. That’s what I’m going to do on my residency there: really try and build the juxtaposition between those two things.
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Learn more about Paloma and her practice:
- https://www.instagram.com/uhblab/
- https://palomateodora.bandcamp.com/
- https://www.youtube.com/@palomaleon1270
References/Links:
- Gracie Oddie James, Heathcliff (Audible Originals, 2026)
- Isobel Van Dyke, ‘Thevxlley smashes its London Fashion Week debut (literally)’ (2026), Dazed
- Chris Bound, ‘Getting To Know… Paloma León’ (2025), Mystic Sons
- Erik Satie – Gymnopédie No. 1 (1888)
- Sky Ferreira – ‘Everything Is Embarrassing’ (2013)
- Yung Lean – ‘Ginseng Strip 2002’ (2013)
- Alex Frank, ‘Why Frank Ocean’s Letter Still Matters’ (2015), The Fader
