{"id":102,"date":"2023-01-17T16:21:45","date_gmt":"2023-01-18T00:21:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/music.wsu.edu\/focam\/?page_id=102"},"modified":"2025-10-07T11:41:53","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T18:41:53","slug":"tania-leon","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/music.wsu.edu\/focam\/tania-leon\/","title":{"rendered":"Tania Le\u00f3n"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wsu-row wsu-row--sidebar-right\" >\r\n    \n<div class=\"wsu-column\"  style=\"\">\r\n\t\n\n<p>Cuban-born Tania Le\u00f3n has emerged as a vital personality on today\u2019s music scene. She is highly regarded as a composer, pianist, and conductor and recognized for her accomplishments as an educator and advisor to arts organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Le\u00f3n cofounded the Dance Theatre of Harlem and is distinguished professor of music composition at Brooklyn College. She received her formal musical training at Carlos Alfredo Peyrellade Conservatory in Havana, New York University, the Juilliard School, and the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Le\u00f3n integrates gospel, jazz, Latin American, and African elements into her technical compositions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>Cultural clash is at the core of music by the composer Tania Le\u00f3n\u2026Naturally, these distinctive styles clash in her music, though in a dynamic sense, as in a good fight, a feisty confrontation.\u201d<\/p>\n<cite><em>New York Times<\/em>&nbsp;music reviewer Anthony Tommasini<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Le\u00f3n received a 2010 Latin Grammy Award nomination for \u201cTo and Fro (4 MOODS),\u201d performed by Nodus Ensemble, in the category of best classical contemporary composition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Composer<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In March 2009, the ballet&nbsp;<em>Inura<\/em>, with music composed by Tania Le\u00f3n and choreographed by Carlos dos Santos, was premiered by Dance Brazil at Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. Other recent premieres include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cEsencia para Cuarteto de Cuerdas,\u201d commissioned by the Fromm Foundation for the Del Sol String Quartet.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c\u00c1cana\u201d for orchestra, a joint commission, premiered by Orpheus at Carnegie Hall and the Purchase College Orchestra.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201cAncients\u201d for two sopranos and mixed ensemble, commissioned by Carolina Performing Arts for the Festival on the Hill 2008.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201cAlma\u201d for flute and piano, commissioned by Marya Martin.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201cAtwood Songs\u201d for soprano and piano with text by Margaret Atwood, commissioned by the Eastman School of Music and Syracuse University.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Collaborative artist<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In March 2005, Le\u00f3n joined forces with Nobel Prize\u2013winner Wole Soyinka, with whom she collaborated on her award-winning opera&nbsp;<em>Scourge of Hyacinths<\/em>. Based on Soyinka\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known<\/em>, the new work celebrated the opening of the Shaw Center for the Performing Arts in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Collaborations with award-winning poets include \u201c\u2026or like a\u201d with John Ashbery, \u201cLove After Love\u201d with Derek Walcott, \u201cSingin\u2019 Sepia and Reflections\u201d with Rita Dove, \u201cA Row of Buttons\u201d with Fae Myenne Ng, and \u201cRezos\u201d with Jamaica Kincaid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Music educator, advocate, advisor<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1969 Le\u00f3n became a founding member and first music director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, where she established their music department, music school, and orchestra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She instituted the Brooklyn Philharmonic Community Concert Series in 1978 and in 1994 cofounded the American Composers Orchestra Sonidos de las Americas Festivals in her capacity as Latin American music advisor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From 1993 to 1997 she was new music advisor to Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Le\u00f3n has been visiting lecturer at Harvard University and visiting professor at Yale University, the University of Michigan, the University of Kansas, Purchase College, the Musikschule in Hamburg, and the Jazz Composer Orchestra Institute. She was named the Claire and Leonard Tow Professor in Music at Brooklyn College in 2000 and has been Distinguished Professor of the City University of New York since 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In March 2008, Le\u00f3n served as U.S. Artistic Ambassador of American Culture in Madrid, Spain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Conductor<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Le\u00f3n has made appearances as guest conductor with the Beethovenhalle Orchestra, Bonn; the National Symphony Orchestra of Johannesburg, South Africa; the Netherlands Wind Ensemble; the Chicago Sinfonietta; and the New York Philharmonic. She has recently appeared as guest conductor with major symphony orchestras throughout Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Honors and awards<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Le\u00f3n\u2019s honors include a 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship, the New York Governor\u2019s Lifetime Achievement Award, and a New York City Council proclamation for personal achievements that reflected positively on the city. She has been awarded honorary doctorate degrees by Colgate University, Oberlin College, and Purchase College.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2010 Le\u00f3n was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters for her compositions. She has also received composition awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Chamber Music America, the Lila Wallace\/Reader\u2019s Digest Fund, Meet the Composer, the Koussevitzky Foundation, and the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><\/h2>\n\n<\/div>\r\n\n\n<div class=\"wsu-column\"  style=\"\">\r\n\t\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"114\" height=\"173\" src=\"https:\/\/wpcdn.web.wsu.edu\/wp-cas\/uploads\/sites\/3166\/2023\/01\/tania-leon.jpg\" alt=\"Tania Le\u00f3n\" class=\"wp-image-103\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tanialeon.com\/\">Learn more at Tania Le\u00f3n\u2019s website<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\" wsu-font-size--small\"><em>(This link leads to an external website that is not hosted by the university. The views and content expressed are those of the faculty member and do not represent the official positions of the university.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\r\n\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":13947,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"wsuwp_university_location":[],"wsuwp_university_org":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/music.wsu.edu\/focam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/102"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/music.wsu.edu\/focam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/music.wsu.edu\/focam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/music.wsu.edu\/focam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13947"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/music.wsu.edu\/focam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/music.wsu.edu\/focam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":312,"href":"https:\/\/music.wsu.edu\/focam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/102\/revisions\/312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/music.wsu.edu\/focam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"wsuwp_university_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/music.wsu.edu\/focam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wsuwp_university_location?post=102"},{"taxonomy":"wsuwp_university_org","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/music.wsu.edu\/focam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wsuwp_university_org?post=102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}