MÉRIDA, Mexico -. The Cuban-American composer Tania León became this Monday the first woman to receive the Tomás Luis de Victoria Ibero-American Music Award corresponding to 2023.
The delivery ceremony took place on Monday afternoon in the Manuel de Falla Room of the SGAE in Madrid.
Pianist Adam Kent and a female trio performed pieces by León “in a tribute concert,” said a note from the SGAE.
The president of the SGAE Foundation, Juan José Solana, received the composer, who will collect the award from the president of SGAE, Antonio Onetti.
The important award, the highest that a musician can aspire to in the Ibero-American field, is awarded by the SGAE Foundation (General Society of Authors and Publishers of Spain) and is endowed with 20,000 euros.
It is dedicated to the career of those who have contributed “substantially to the enrichment of the musical heritage of the Ibero-American peoples through their creative work.”
In 2023, when he learned of his election, León remembered his grandmother, of whom he said “she would have been very happy to know my career and this recognition.”
“She was the one who discovered she had something to do in music when she was four years old. For me it is very gratifying,” he added.
In 1996, in its first edition, the Tomás Luis de Victoria was won by also Cuban Harold Gramatges, and, in 2010, it was awarded to another prominent composer from the island, Leo Brouwer.
The most recent winner to receive it until this Monday was the Catalan Leonardo Balada, who did so in 2021.
Tania León: work and legacy
León is widely respected for her achievements as an educator and advisor to arts organizations, and has been the subject of numerous profiles in international media.
In July 2022, was awarded with the 45th Annual Kennedy Center Honors Award for lifetime artistic achievement, alongside George Clooney, Amy Grant, Gladys Knight and U2. In 2023, he received the Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Music Composition from Northwestern University. Additionally, she was named Composer-in-Residence of the London Philharmonic Orchestra for two seasons beginning in September 2023 and will hold the Richard and Barbara Debs Composers Chair at Carnegie Hall for the 2023-2024 season.
His orchestral work Stridecommissioned by the New York Philharmonic to celebrate the centennial of the 19th Amendment, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2021. Recent premieres include Be for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Tickets for the Arkansas Symphony and the Detroit Symphony, and Rhythmic for the Grossman Ensemble of the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition.
León has collaborated with renowned poets, writers and directors, including John Ashbery, Margaret Atwood, Rita Dove, Wendy Kesselman, Jamaica Kincaid, Mark Lamos, Fae Myenne Ng, Julie Taymor, Derek Walcott and Robert Wilson. Highlights of his career include a Portrait of a Composer at Columbia University’s Miller Theater in New York and his opera Scourge of Hyacinths, based on a work by Wole Soyinka with design and direction by Robert Wilson, which won the coveted BMW Award.
Likewise, the Cuban artist has been guest conductor of prestigious international orchestras, including the Marseille Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, the Beethovenhalle Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Genevathe Asturias Symphony Orchestra, the Santa Cecilia Orchestra, the Sadler’s Wells Opera Orchestra, the Guanajuato Symphony Orchestra and the El Salvador Symphony Orchestra, among others.
In 1969, León was a founding member and first Musical Director of the Dance Theater of Harlem, establishing the institution’s Music Department, School of Music, and Orchestra. Additionally, she founded the Composers Now Festival in 2010, a nonprofit organization that seeks to empower living composers and celebrate the diversity of their voices.
She has taught at various universities and has received honorary doctorates from Colgate University, Oberlin, SUNY Purchase College, and The Curtis Institute of Music. Since 1985, she has been a professor at Brooklyn College and at The Graduate Center, CUNY, where she was named the Claire and Leonard Tow Professor in Music in 2000, Distinguished Professor of the City University of New York in 2006, and Professor Emerita in September 2019.
León currently serves as honorary president of the Composers and Songwriters wing of the Recording Academy and is a member of the Boards of Directors of the Philharmonic of New York and The ASCAP Foundation.
In 2023, the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University acquired Tania León’s archive, further cementing her legacy as an influential figure in the contemporary music scene. With such a prolific and award-filled career, Tania León continues to be a vital personality in music today, and her birthday provides the opportunity to celebrate and honor her numerous achievements and contributions to the art world.
