Tania Leónaus modern

Tania León (* 14 May 1943 in Havana) is a Cuban-American composer, conductor and music teacher.

Life

León attended the Conservatorio Carlos Alfredo Peyrellade and the National Conservatory of her hometown. In 1967 she went to the USA and continued her education at New York University. In 1969 she founded the Dance Theater of Harlem with Arthur Mitchell, which she led as music director until 1978. She composed ballets for the company such as Tones (1973), Dougla (with Geoffrey Holder, 1974) and Spiritual Suite (with Marian Anderson, 1976).

Since the 1970s she has appeared as conductor at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto (1971) and the Nervi Festival in Genoa (1972), with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid, the Marseille Symphony Orchestra, the Orquesta de la Communidad y Coro de Madrid, the Orchestra de Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Gewandhaus Orchestra, the National Symphony of South Africa, the Louisville Orchestra and the New World Symphony, among others.

From 1985 she taught at Brooklyn College, where she was appointed Tow Distinguished Professor in 2000. She has also given master classes at the Hamburg Conservatory, Yale University, Harvard University, Yaddo and the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center. In 1978 she founded the Brooklyn Philharmonic Community Concert Series, and in 1994 she was involved in the founding of the American Composers Orchestra Sonidos de las Americas Festivals as advisor for Latin American music. Between 1993 and 1997 she served as new music consultant for Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

Since 2006, León has been Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York. In 2010, she founded the New York festival for contemporary music Composers Now. In the same year, she became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2018 of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She received the Pulitzer Prize/Music in 2021 for her work Stride.

Source Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tania_León