Leonardo R. Soto, Jr. is the Principal Timpanist of the Houston Symphony a position he has held since 2018. Before arriving to Houston, Leonardo served as Principal Timpanist of the Charlotte Symphony from 2009 to 2018, and the Detroit Opera House from 2003 to 2009.

Leonardo has the unique distinction of being the first native Hispanic to hold a Principal Timpani position in a major orchestra in the United States.

During his career Leonardo has been invited as guest timpanist with orchestras such as The Cleveland Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Seoul Philharmonic, NewWorld Symphony, Grand Rapids Symphony, Santiago Philharmonic, Sinfonica Nacional de Chile, among others, while in Charlotte he was an active member of NuDeco Ensemble in Miami, and currently an active member of the Grand Tetons Music Festival Orchestra.

As an educator Leonardo is faculty member at the Brevard Music Festival and has guest as clinician and lecturer at Universities such as Northwestern, DePaul, Rice, Denver, Lynn, Houston, University of Georgia, North Carolina, Universidad de Antioquia in Colombia, Bolivia, Puerto Rico, Seoul and Universidad de Chile. As well as active coach at Carnegie Hall’s NYO-NYO2, Filarmónica Joven de Colombia, Programa de Orquestas Juveniles de Chile and former faculty member at Queens University of Charlotte.

As a soloist Leonardo made his debut with the Houston Symphony in 2020 and has performed concerti with the Charlotte Symphony, Amarillo Symphony, University of North Carolina percussion ensemble. In January 2017 he performed the world premiere of “Evolution Percussion Concerto,” written for him by composer Leonard Mark Lewis.

In 2024, along side Matthew Strauss of the Houston Symphony, Leonardo became a co-founder of the International Timpani Intensive ITI, an annual timpani seminar that welcomes students from around the world and at the same time is livestream internationally. The seminar takes place in Houston and hosts over 30 timpanist from college to professional level.

Mr Soto began his musical education at the University of Chile and was the recipient of the Teatro Municipal of Santiago National Scholarship. Concurrently, he was trained as a Latin percussionist by his father, Mr. Leonardo Soto, Sr., one of Chile's most prominent musicians in the field. Leonardo embarked on his professional career with the Santiago Philharmonic Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra of Chile, where he gained experience in orchestral, opera and ballet repertoire. In 1997, he received the Fundación Andes International Scholarship to finish his education in the United States where he studied at Carnegie Mellon University under Timothy Adams who was the Timpanist of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Later he was made an honorary student at Cleveland State University by Tom Freer retired percussionist of the Cleveland Orchestra. Working with Jeff Luft of Luft Mallets in 2018 Leonardo launched his own signature line of Timpani mallets to the market and is a proud performing artist for, Adams Percussion, Pearl/Adams Percussion, Remo Drumheads, and Luft Mallets.