Fred Leavitt

Art

Fred Leavitt is a distinguished photographer and digital artist with works in museums across the country and the Vatican Collection in Rome .  He has three books of his photography in print and is a Pulitzer Prize nominee.   Mr. Leavitt is president of Fred Leavitt Inc, a corporation specializing in web & print design, digital illustration and photography for business communications.

Music

Fred has traveled the world playing hand drums in some 37 different countries. He has organized and choreographed drum events for major corporations and institutions throughout the Chicagoland area including:

  • Field Museum of Chicago
  • Chicago Department of Cultural affairs
  • Chicago Council on Human Relations
  • Chicago Park District
  • Chicago Public Schools
  • Blue Cross / Blue Shield
  • British Airways

Mr. Leavitt organized Chicago’s largest drum circle with over 10,000 people in attendance. He has also been an endorser of LP instruments (the world’s largest manufacturer of percussion instruments) and Executive Editor of World Rhythm & Percussion magazine. 

Mr. Leavitt is a founder, manager of and performer in the Primal Connection, A multi-cultural, world rhythm, percussion ensemble originating in Chicago. The Primal Connection, a popular group in the city, has opened for the Chicago's Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, has been hired by Chicago's Symphony Orchestra, the Art Institute of Chicago and was frequently commissioned by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. The Ensemble had its own world music show on Northwestern University’s radio station.

Fred is also the Founder and Executive Director of Primal Connection Inc, a not-for-profit educational organization that uses percussion to enhance learning, as a healing aid for physical, psychological and social ailments, as well as a vehicle to improve cross-cultural relations.

Primal Connection Inc has pioneered the use of percussion as a cross-disciplinary educational tool to teach algebra concepts to fifth-graders, as well as geography, math, sociology and English as a second language.

In 2001 Primal Connection Inc moved to Sebring and, under the leadership of Mr. Leavitt, has added programs for youth-at-risk, addictions, dementia and bereavement.