She started playing the piano when she was 10, and ten years later dropped out of medical school to devote herself full-time to her musical career. Her debut performance as a singer was in October 1980 with the show entitled “Sinal de Partida”, at Teatro da Paz in Belém.

In May 1981 Pinheiro moved to Rio de Janeiro. Two months later she started work on her first LP, LEILA PINHEIRO, an independent recording which was eventually released in 1983. The special guest performers included Tom Jobim, João Donato, Ivan Lins, Francis Hime and Toninho Horta.

In 1985 she took part in the last large-scale festival of Brazilian music, “Festival dos Festivais” singing “Verde”, by Eduardo Gudin and José Carlos Costa Netto. The song took third place and Pinheiro won the Best New Artist award.

In the following year Leila Pinheiro signed a contract with PolyGram (now Universal Music) and recorded OLHO NU, which was distributed simultaneously in Brazil and Japan. It included American guitarist Pat Metheny as special guest performer and songs by Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and Renato Russo, among other leading names in Brazilian music.

Leila Pinheiro’s first visit to Japan took place when she represented Brazil at the 17th Yamaha World Popular Song Festival, receiving the Best Vocal Performance award. In the following year, she was awarded the Villa Lobos trophy by ABPD, the Brazilian Record Producers Association, for Best New Female Performer of 1987.

ALMA, Leila’s third record, which included compositions by Chico Buarque and Edu Lobo and Milton Nascimento, was released in March 1988 in Brazil by PolyGram and soon afterwards in Japan. In 1989 she renewed her contract with the record company. Her next project BÊNÇÃO, BOSSA NOVA, celebrating 30 years of one of the most important musical movements in Brazil, included songs by Tom Jobim, Carlos Lyra, Durval Ferreira, Baden Powell, Marcos and Paulo Sergio Valle, Johnny Alf and Jorge Benjor.

OUTRAS CARAS, Leila Pinheiro’s fifth record, was released in July 1991 with PolyGram. It includes compositions by Caetano Veloso, Guilherme Arantes, Guinga and Walter Franco. The tour of the same name, directed by Nelson Motta, went on until the end of 1992. In July 1993, PolyGram released COISAS DO BRASIL, which was produced and arranged by musician Cesar Camargo Mariano. The CD includes songs by Chico Buarque, Carlos Lyra and Ivan Lins. In the same year Leila toured Europe for the first time with an acoustic backing trio, performing in Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Spain.

In May 1994, Leila Pinheiro signed a contract with EMI-Music. ISSO É BOSSA NOVA, an acoustic recording dedicated to the great composers of bossa nova, was released at the end of October and promoted in an extended tour around Brazil.

Between March and May 1996, Leila Pinheiro produced CATAVENTO E GIRASSOL, a CD entirely devoted to the creative partnership between two of the great names in Brazilian music: Guinga (composer and guitarist) and Aldir Blanc (lyricist, poet and composer). In September, she visited the United States on the invitation of Ivan Lins to join him on his extended American tour. In October, she returned to New York to take part in a show in Carnegie Hall entitled All Jobim, where she performed beside Al Jarreau, Ivan Lins and Sharon Isbin, among others.

In September 1998, EMI music released Leila Pinheiro’s ninth disc and the first also produced by her: NA PONTA DA LÍNGUA. The promotional show, directed by actress and scriptwriter Denise Bandeira, was launched in May of the following year. It included a mix of songs from the recent release, her own past successes, a few American jazz standards by composers like George Gershwin and Cole Porter, and a handful of bossa nova classics. At the end of August, Leila performed with a Portuguese group Madredeus and in October went to Israel, where she sang and played in Jerusalem at “Noite Brasileira”, accompanied by the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra.

In August 2000, Leila Pinheiro released her tenth record, REENCONTRO, with EMI MUSIC. In the same month she was one of the guest musicians in “Brazilian Things” at the Lincoln Center Out Of Doors in New York. The other performers were Brazilian singers Bebel Gilberto, Carol Saboya and Patrícia Marx and the vocal ensemble Quinteto D’Elas. In the same month she set off on tour to promote her recently released disc with shows again directed by Denise Bandeira.

In October, Leila revisited the USA to perform with singers Ivan Lins and Ed Motta and musical ensemble Batacotô. The show toured from coast to coast, visiting 12 cities between San Francisco and New York, where the final performance was held in Carnegie Hall. During this, Pinheiro’s second time on its legendary stage, she paid tribute to Ivan Lins alongside Chaka Khan, Vanessa Williams, Brenda Russel and Fred Cole, among others.

Pianist and composer Francis Hime extended Leila Pinheiro an invitation to be one of the soloists in his “Sinfonia do Rio de Janeiro de São Sebastião”, along with Lenine, Olívia Hime, Sérgio Santos and Zé Renato. Accompanied by a Symphony Orchestra specially organized for this event, with the finest brazilian musicians, and conducted by Francis Hime, the piece was performed in November at Rio de Janeiro’s Municipal Theater and on a stage set up on Copacabana beach.

In February 2001 Pinheiro signed a contract with Universal Music, former PolyGram, with which she had recorded her first five discs between 1986 and 1993. At the end of the month, she did a short tour in Japan together with singer-songwriter Ivan Lins, playing at Tokyo’s traditional Blue Note.

MAIS COISAS DO BRASIL is recorded at the beginning of July, live, at the Universal Up, space in the company's headquarters in Rio de Janeiro. At the time, the project was unprecedented: recording the CD and the DVD, together, for the first time in Brazil.
Her next album will be NOS HORIZONTES DO MUNDO, released in May 2005, by Biscoito Fino. Leila presents this shows in the main capitals of the country. In August 2006 records in Sao Paulo, the CD and DVD of this show, released by Biscoito Fino in June 2007: NOS HORIZONTES DO MUNDO AO VIVO.

In December, 2007 is released the CD and DVD AGARRADINHOS, which marks the meeting of Leila with Roberto Menescal. Recorded live in July 2006 in Rio de Janeiro, the work is licensed by Leila’s Tacacá Music and Menescal’ s Bossa 58, in partnership with Roberto de Oliveira (RWR), who directed the DVD, for EMI MUSIC.

Discography

1983: Leila Pinheiro (Independente)
1986: Olho Nu (PolyGram)
1988: Alma (PolyGram)
1989: Bênção, Bossa Nova (PolyGram)
1991: Outras Caras (PolyGram)
1993: Coisas do Brasil (PolyGram)
1994: Isso É Bossa Nova (EMI Music)
1996: Catavento e Girassol (EMI Music)
1998: Na Ponta da Língua (EMI Music)
2000: Reencontro (EMI Music)
2001: Mais Coisas do Brasil (Universal Music) CD e DVD
2005: Nos Horizontes do Mundo (Biscoito Fino)
2007: Nos Horizontes do Mundo ao vivo (Biscoito Fino) CD e DVD
2007: Agarradinhos (EMI Music)CD e DVD

Website :- www.leilapinheiro.com