TANIA LEÓN

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Cuban-born American composer, conductor and educator Tania León is one of the
most acclaimed and influential musicians of her, or any other, generation. She was the
first Latin American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Music in 2021, in 2022 she was
awarded a Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime artistic achievements, and in 2023, she
was received the Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Music Composition from
Northwestern University and became the first woman to be honored with the highest
composition prize conferred by Spain, the XIX Premio SGAE for Iberian American Music
Tomás Luis de Victoria.

As a composer, she has been commissioned by leading orchestras around the world, held Carnegie Hall’s Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair for its 2023-2024 season, and currently serves as Composer-in-Residence with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. As a conductor, she studied under Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa, and has guest conducted the New York Philharmonic, Gewandhausorchester, Santa Cecilia Orchestra, and many more.

As an educator, she has guest lectured and served as Visiting Professor at Harvard
University, Yale University, Chicago University, Musikschule in Hamburg, and others,
and has received Honorary Doctorate Degrees from the Juilliard School, Columbia
University, Oberlin, The Curtis Institute of Music, Colgate University, SUNY Purchase
College, New Jersey City University, and Brooklyn College. León has served as an
advisor to the New York Philharmonic and American Composers Orchestra, and in 2010 she founded Composers Now with the mission of empowering living composers.

Photo: Gail Hadani