Creative programming that is audience focused is part of Leif’s core practice as a conductor. He is committed to diversifying ‘the canon’ by programming works by female composers and/or composers from the global majority, be it contemporary or neglected pieces from the past. By engaging audience members in the discovery or re-discovery of these pieces, Leif demonstrates the vitality and relevance of classical music in today’s society as an ever-changing and thriving art form.

Most recently, he conducted Fanny Mendelssohn’s Overture in C Major with Les Violons du Roy, Hannah Kendall’s Verdala, Elizabeth Maconchy’s Tribute and Grete von Zieritz’s Japanische Lieder at the Royal College of Music, and gave the world premiere of Margarida Gonçalves’ The Acts of Brízida Vaz at the Tête-à-Tête Opera Festival 2024. He previously paired Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été with Louise Farrenc’s Symphony No. 1, with the connection being that both composers were contemporaries at the Paris Conservatoire and that Berlioz was known to have been inspired by Farrenc’s works. Leif is currently collaborating with director Theo Coleridge to adapt Lili Boulanger’s Faust et Hélène into a short film. Their version of this classic Goethe’s tale is a truncated reworking with a new English libretto that pulls opera out of the theatre and into the chaotic world of social media, toxic masculinity, and the predatory trappings of over-eager men who "screen out" the pain that they cause.

Leif is also passionate about putting the spotlight on living composers so that the voices of today’s creative minds are offered as equally valuable to the ones of the past. He conducted George Lewis’ Assemblage as part of Lewis’ 2025 ‘Composer in Residence’ at the Royal College of Music and Eric Whitacre’s Godzilla Eats Las Vegas with the Central Band of the Royal Air Force. He worked closely with Gabriel Prokofiev to give the UK premiere of the genre-bending Techno Suite and commissioned Jan Pospíšil’s Daydreams in 2024, conducting it’s world premiere with The Clio Project in the same year.