Clarinettist, Leanne Manning, was born and raised in Australia, where she completed a Bachelor of Music with Honours at the University of Queensland and a Graduate Diploma in Performance at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, studying with Floyd Williams, where she was the winner of the Conservatorium Woodwind Prize and theYamaha Woodwind Prize. After continuing studies in England and The Netherlands, Leanne attended Michigan State University, USA, as a scholarship student of Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr, where she completed a Master of Music.

She was principal clarinet and soloist at the Rome Festival in Italy, and has lived in Southern California, U.S.A., playing regularly in San Diego and Los Angeles with many chamber ensembles and orchestras, including the Long Beach Symphony, Santa Monica Symphony, Brentwood-Westwood Symphony and Pacific Palisaides Orchestra, the Moscow Grigorovich Ballet, and Sonor, the faculty contemporary music ensemble at the University of California, San Diego, including on the Los Angeles Philharmonic Green Umbrella Series and in conjunction with the Institute of Music Creation and Research of Buenos Aires. She has performed with I Solisti del Los Angeles, with members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestras and participated in studio recordings sponsored by Musicians International, Local 47.

Currently living in Hong Kong, Leanne is principal clarinet of the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra in China, and a member of the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong. She has free-lanced as an extra player with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and the Macau Orchestra. She also regularly performs solo recitals and chamber music, having playing for the Hong Kong Chamber Music Society and as a member of the Pearl Delta Chamber Solists in critically acclaimed performances of the Schubert Octet and Beethoven Septet. In 2003 she won first prize in the Co-op Press Woodwind Recording Competion, which included a commercial CD release on Emeritus lable and numerous public radio broadcasts across the USA. She has been broadcast on RTHK Radio 4 in the "Music of Friends" series, and in 2005 she made solo appearances at ClarinetFest 2005 in Tama-Tokyo, Japan and at the Melbourne International Festival of Single Reeds in Australia.