Leonhard S. Rose was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1931. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Music Education from the Milwaukee State Teacher’s College (now the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee). He went on to graduate from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor with a Master’s Degree in Choral Conducting and did graduate studies in organ with Sister Theophane Hytrek at Alverno College. 

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He was the organist at Ascension Lutheran Church in Milwaukee for more than 40 years. As an educator, he was the orchestra, band, and choral director at South Division High School in Milwaukee for more than four decades. Also a professional trombonist, he performed with the Milwaukee and Waukesha Symphony Orchestras, the Milwaukee American Legion Band, and rode atop a circus band wagon behind the famed 40–horse hitch in the Great American Circus Parade. He also served as the producer for "Music under the Stars," which hosted such legends as Placid Domingo, Victor Borga, Ethel Merman, John Denver, and Robert Goulet.  

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Mr. Rose and his beloved wife, Colleen, who passed away in 2022, had seven children, many of whom are actively involved in music. Leonhard and Colleen received the Milwaukee Civic Music Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015 for their lifelong commitment to and support of the community’s music.