Tania Leon
Encyclopedia
Tania León is a Cuban composer and conductor who has been recognized as an educator and advisor to arts organizations.
with León conducting, has received over 22 performances in Germany
, Switzerland
, France
and Mexico
. Based on a radio play by Nobel Prize
-winner Wole Soyinka
it was commissioned in 1994 by the Munich Biennale
, where it won the BMW
Prize as best new opera
. The aria Oh Yemanja from Scourge was recorded by Dawn Upshaw
on her Nonesuch CD "The World So Wide".
León's orchestral work Desde... was premiered by the American Composers Orchestra
in March 2001 in Carnegie Hall
. Horizons, written for the NDR Symphony Orchestra of Hamburg premiered at the July 1999 Hammoniale Festival, with Peter Ruzicka
conducting. In August 2000, Horizons had its U.S. premiere at the Tanglewood Contemporary Music Festival, Stefan Asbury conducting. León conducted the work with the Orchestre Symphonique de Nancy (France) in March 2002.
Drummin, a full-length cross-cultural work for indigenous percussionists and orchestra, was commissioned and premiered in 1997 by Miami Light Project and the New World Symphony
. It opened the 1999 Hammoniale Festival, Hamburg
.
Many of León's works have been recorded, including Batá, by the Foundation Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by David Snell and produced by Sir George Martin
; Indígena, a collection of León’s chamber music; Carabalí (and already Batá) on the Louisville Orchestra
’s First Edition Records; Rituál, for solo piano, and her arrangement of Moises Simons
' song El Manisero for Chanticleer
.
In 1998 she was awarded the New York Governor’s Lifetime Achievement Award. She has received Honorary Doctorates from Colgate University
and Oberlin College
and awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, National Endowment for the Arts
, Chamber Music America, NYSCA, Lila Wallace/Reader’s Digest Fund, ASCAP and Koussevitzky Foundation, among others. In 1998 she held the Fromm Residency at the American Academy in Rome.
León was a founding member and first Music Director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem
establishing their Music Department, Music School and Orchestra. She instituted the Brooklyn Philharmonic
Community Concert Series in 1978 and in 1994 co-founded the American Composers Orchestra Sonidos de las Americas Festivals as Latin American Music
Advisor. From 1993 to 1997 she was New Music Advisor to Kurt Masur
and the New York Philharmonic.
She has been guest conductor with the Beethovenhalle Orchestra, Bonn
, the Gewandhausorchester, Leipzig
, the Santa Cecilia Orchestra, Rome, the National Symphony Orchestra of South Africa, Johannesburg
, the Netherlands Wind Ensemble, the Netherlands
, and the New York Philharmonic
, among others.
Tania León has been the subject of profiles on ABC
, CBS
, CNN
, PBS
, Univision
and independent films.
León has been a Visiting Lecturer at Harvard University
, Visiting Professor at Yale University
and the Musikschule in Hamburg
. In 2000 she was named the Tow Distinguished Professor at the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College
, where she has taught since 1985. Brooklyn College
is one of the senior colleges of the City University of New York
(CUNY), where she is also on the faculty of the CUNY Graduate Center, in Manhattan.
NewMusicBox
August 1, 1999
León's Music
León's opera Scourge of Hyacinths, staged and designed by Robert WilsonRobert Wilson (director)
Robert Wilson is an American avant-garde stage director and playwright who has been called "[America]'s — or even the world's — foremost vanguard 'theater artist'". Over the course of his wide-ranging career, he has also worked as a choreographer, performer, painter, sculptor, video...
with León conducting, has received over 22 performances in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. Based on a radio play by Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
-winner Wole Soyinka
Wole Soyinka
Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Soyinka is a Nigerian writer, poet and playwright. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, where he was recognised as a man "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence", and became the first African in Africa and...
it was commissioned in 1994 by the Munich Biennale
Munich Biennale
The Munich Biennale is an opera festival in the city of Munich. The full German name is Internationales Festival für neues Musiktheater, literally: International Festival for New Music Theater. The biennial festival was created in 1988 by Hans Werner Henze and is held in even-numbered years over...
, where it won the BMW
BMW
Bayerische Motoren Werke AG is a German automobile, motorcycle and engine manufacturing company founded in 1916. It also owns and produces the Mini marque, and is the parent company of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. BMW produces motorcycles under BMW Motorrad and Husqvarna brands...
Prize as best new opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
. The aria Oh Yemanja from Scourge was recorded by Dawn Upshaw
Dawn Upshaw
Dawn Upshaw is an American soprano described as "one of the most consequential performers of our time" by the Los Angeles Times. The recipient of several Grammy Awards and Edison Prize-winning discs, Upshaw is at home both in opera and art song, and in repertoire from Baroque to contemporary...
on her Nonesuch CD "The World So Wide".
León's orchestral work Desde... was premiered by the American Composers Orchestra
American Composers Orchestra
The American Composers Orchestra is an American orchestra based in New York City. It is the only orchestra in the world dedicated solely to the creation, performance, preservation, and promulgation of music by American composers...
in March 2001 in Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
. Horizons, written for the NDR Symphony Orchestra of Hamburg premiered at the July 1999 Hammoniale Festival, with Peter Ruzicka
Peter Ruzicka
Peter Ruzicka is a German composer and conductor of classical music.Peter Ruzicka was born in Düsseldorf on July 3, 1948. He received his early musical training at the Hamburg Conservatory. He studied composition with Hans Werner Henze and Hans Otte...
conducting. In August 2000, Horizons had its U.S. premiere at the Tanglewood Contemporary Music Festival, Stefan Asbury conducting. León conducted the work with the Orchestre Symphonique de Nancy (France) in March 2002.
Drummin, a full-length cross-cultural work for indigenous percussionists and orchestra, was commissioned and premiered in 1997 by Miami Light Project and the New World Symphony
New World Symphony Orchestra
The New World Symphony is the United States' only full-time orchestral academy preparing musicians for careers in symphony orchestras and ensembles...
. It opened the 1999 Hammoniale Festival, Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
.
Many of León's works have been recorded, including Batá, by the Foundation Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by David Snell and produced by Sir George Martin
George Martin
Sir George Henry Martin CBE is an English record producer, arranger, composer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"— a title that he often describes as "nonsense," but the fact remains that he served as producer on all but one of The Beatles' original albums...
; Indígena, a collection of León’s chamber music; Carabalí (and already Batá) on the Louisville Orchestra
Louisville Orchestra
The Louisville Orchestra is the primary orchestra in Louisville, Kentucky and has been called the cornerstone of the Louisville arts scene. It was founded in 1937 by Robert Whitney and Charles Farnsley, Mayor of Louisville...
’s First Edition Records; Rituál, for solo piano, and her arrangement of Moises Simons
Moisés Simons
Moisés Simons , was a leading Cuban composer, pianist and orchestra leader. He was the composer of the Peanut Vendor, possibly the most famous piece of music created by a Cuban musician...
' song El Manisero for Chanticleer
Chanticleer (ensemble)
Based in San Francisco, California, Chanticleer is a full-time classical vocal ensemble in the United States. Over the last three decades, it has developed a major reputation for its interpretations of Renaissance music, but it also performs a wide repertoire of jazz, gospel, and other venturesome...
.
In 1998 she was awarded the New York Governor’s Lifetime Achievement Award. She has received Honorary Doctorates from Colgate University
Colgate University
Colgate University is a private liberal arts college in Hamilton, New York, USA. The school was founded in 1819 as a Baptist seminary and later became non-denominational. It is named for the Colgate family who greatly contributed to the university's endowment in the 19th century.Colgate has 52...
and Oberlin College
Oberlin College
Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...
and awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
, Chamber Music America, NYSCA, Lila Wallace/Reader’s Digest Fund, ASCAP and Koussevitzky Foundation, among others. In 1998 she held the Fromm Residency at the American Academy in Rome.
León was a founding member and first Music Director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem
Dance Theatre of Harlem
Dance Theatre of Harlem is a ballet company and school of the allied arts founded in Harlem, New York City, USA in 1969 by Arthur Mitchell and Karel Shook...
establishing their Music Department, Music School and Orchestra. She instituted the Brooklyn Philharmonic
Brooklyn Philharmonic
The Brooklyn Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, commonly known as the Brooklyn Philharmonic, is an American orchestra based in the borough of Brooklyn, in New York City...
Community Concert Series in 1978 and in 1994 co-founded the American Composers Orchestra Sonidos de las Americas Festivals as Latin American Music
Latin American music
Latin American music, found within Central and South America, is a series of musical styles and genres that mixes influences from Spanish, African and indigenous sources, that has recently become very famous in the US.-Argentina:...
Advisor. From 1993 to 1997 she was New Music Advisor to Kurt Masur
Kurt Masur
Kurt Masur is a German conductor, particularly noted for his interpretation of German Romantic music.- Biography :Masur was born in Brieg, Lower Silesia, Germany and studied piano, composition and conducting in Leipzig, Saxony. Masur has been married three times...
and the New York Philharmonic.
She has been guest conductor with the Beethovenhalle Orchestra, Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
, the Gewandhausorchester, Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, the Santa Cecilia Orchestra, Rome, the National Symphony Orchestra of South Africa, Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
, the Netherlands Wind Ensemble, the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, and the New York Philharmonic
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...
, among others.
Tania León has been the subject of profiles on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
, CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
, CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
, Univision
Univision
Univision is a Spanish-language television network in the United States. It has the largest audience of Spanish language television viewers according to Nielsen ratings. Randy Falco, COO, has been in charge of the company since the departure of Univision Communications president and CEO Joe Uva...
and independent films.
León has been a Visiting Lecturer at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, Visiting Professor at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
and the Musikschule in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
. In 2000 she was named the Tow Distinguished Professor at the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College
Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College
The Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College is the music school of Brooklyn College of the City University of New York...
, where she has taught since 1985. Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...
is one of the senior colleges of the City University of New York
City University of New York
The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City, with its administrative offices in Yorkville in Manhattan. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E...
(CUNY), where she is also on the faculty of the CUNY Graduate Center, in Manhattan.
Chamber Works
- A la Par, piano and percussion
- Acana, chamber orchestra
- Ascend, brass ensemble
- Bele, chamber orchestra
- De Color, violin and marimba
- De Memorias, woodwind quintet
- Dougla, large mixed ensemble
- Drummin chamber orchestra
- entre nos, clarinet, bassoon, piano
- Escencia, string quartet
- Four Pieces for Cello, violoncello solo
- Haiku percussion ensemble, large mixed ensemble
- Hechizos, chamber orchestra
- Indigena large mixed ensemble
- Maggie Magalita, large mixed ensemble
- Paisanos Semos!, guitar solo
- Parajota Delate, mixed quintet
- Permutation Seven, mixed sextet
- Pet's Suite, flute and keyboard
- Saoko, brass quintet
- sin normas ajenas, large mixed ensemble
- Son Sonora, flute and guitar
- The Beloved, large mixed ensemble
- The Golden Windows, large mixed ensemble
- Tones, chamber orchestra
Orchestral Works
- Bata
- Carabali
- Concerto Criollo, piano, solo timp and orchestra
- Desde…
- Horizons
- Kabiosile, piano and orchestra
- Para Viola y Orquesta, solo viola and orchestra
Vocal Works
- Batey, vocal ensemble and instrumental ensemble
- De-Orishas, vocal ensemble (6 to 12 singers)
- Drume Negrita mixed chorus
- El Manisero, mixed chorus
- Ivo, Ivo, high voice and ensemble
- Journey, high voice and ensemble
- Oh Yemanja (Mother's Prayer), medium voice and ensemble
- Pueblo Mulato, high voice and ensemble
- Singin' Sepia, medium voice and ensemble
- Sol de Doce, vocal ensemble (6 to 12 singers),
- To and Fro medium voice
Interviews
Tania León: What it Means to be an American Composer Tania León in conversation with Frank J. OteriFrank J. Oteri
Frank J. Oteri born May 12, 1964 is a composer based in New York City.Oteri's musical works have been performed in venues from Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall to the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art...
NewMusicBox
NewMusicBox
NewMusicBox is an e-zine launched by the American Music Center on May 1, 1999. The magazine includes interviews and articles concerning American Contemporary Music, composers, improvisers, and musicians....
August 1, 1999
Films
- 1993 - The Sensual Nature of Sound: 4 Composers - Laurie Anderson, Tania León, Meredith Monk, Pauline Oliveros. Directed by Michael Blackwood.
External links
- Tania León
- Peermusic Classical: Tania Leon Composer's Publisher and Bio
- Discography
- NewMusicBox: Tania León in conversation with Frank J. Oteri, 1999
- http://www.galegroup.com/free_resources/chh/bio/leon_t.htm
- Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music