Kendra Preston Leonard is a lyricist and librettist whose collaborations with composers tell stories about empowerment, resilience, and compassion. The Teaching Artist in Libretto Writing at Guerilla Opera, Leonard is inspired by history, language, nature, and myth. Her texts have been set by composers including Jessica Rudman, Allyssa Jones, Elaine Fine, George Harvey, Lisa Neher, Stephen Vincent Casellas, and Michael Oberhauser, and performed by the American Opera Project, Choral Arts Initiative, Opera Contempo, Opera Elect, the NEO Voice Festival songbook showcase, and Hartford Opera Theater, among others. Her libretti include Neither Created Nor Destroyed, with music by Jessica Rudman, premiered in 2023; Waters Rising, with music by Tim Hinck, commissioned by Arts Capacity for inmates at Walker State Prison, premiered in 2023; Sense of Self, created with composer Lisa Neher and premiered by Opera Elect in 2021; The Harbingers, with music by Rosśa Crean, premiered in 2019; Marie Curie Learns to Swim, with music by Jessica Rudman, performed by Hartford Opera Theater in 2018. In 2021, she and Neher created and produced the One Voice Micro-Opera Project, featuring singers Zach Finkelstein in Now Available; Margaret O’Connell in Woman Waits with Sword; Hugo Vera in Wide Awake in the New City; and Audrey Yoder in Par for the Course. Recent premieres and performances include Gilgamesh Weeps for low voices, with music by Lisa Neher; A Forest that is Desert, a song cycle for choir with music by Jessica Rudman; Water Songs, a song cycle with music by Allyssa Jones. Leonard is also a music scholar, focusing on women and music in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; and music and screen history. You can follow her at https://kendraprestonleonard.hcommons.org/.