Tania León (b.1943)

Tania León (b. Havana, Cuba) is highly regarded as a composer, conductor, educator and advisor to arts organisations. Her orchestral work Stride, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, was awarded the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Music. In 2022, she was named a recipient of the 45th Annual Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime artistic achievement. In 2023, she was awarded the Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Music Composition from Northwestern University.

León became the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s in 2023 and held Carnegie Hall’s Debs Composer’s Chair for its 2023–24 season. Honours include the New York Governor’s Lifetime Achievement, inductions into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and fellowship awards from ASCAP Victor Herbert Award and The Koussevitzky Music and Guggenheim Foundations, among others. León has received Honorary Doctorate Degrees from Colgate University, Oberlin, SUNY Purchase College, and The Curtis Institute of Music, and served as US Artistic Ambassador of American Culture in Madrid, Spain.

A CUNY Professor Emerita, she was awarded a 2018 United States Artists Fellowship, Chamber Music America’s 2022 National Service Award, and Harvard University’s 2022 Luise Vosgerchian Teaching Award. In 2023, Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library acquired Tania’s León’s archive.

www.tanialeon.com