MADRID, Spain.- The renowned Cuban composer and conductor living in the United States Tania León received the Michael Ludwig Nemmers Award for Musical Composition from the Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University.
The award, which includes $100,000 and a two-year residency at Northwestern University’s Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music, honors classical music composers of outstanding achievement who have significantly influenced the field of composition. .
León’s first residency on campus is scheduled for the winter term 2024 and will feature performances of his music by Bienen School students, as well as training sessions with Bienen ensembles and lessons and seminars with composition students. . The second residence of Bienen School will be during the 2024-2025 academic year.
As quoted in a statement the Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University, after receiving the award Tania León expressed: “I am delighted and deeply honored to receive the Nemmers Music Award. I look forward to working with and meeting the excellent students, faculty, and ensembles at Northwestern Bienen School of Music over the next two years.”
Established in 2003, the Nemmers Prize in Music Composition recognizes composers who display the highest level of achievement in a substantial and continuing body of work. Nominations are solicited from around the world and the winner is determined by a committee made up of personalities from the music community.
Past recipients of the biennial award include John Adams (2004), Oliver Knussen (2006), Kaija Saariaho (2008), John Luther Adams (2010), Aaron Jay Kernis (2012), Esa-Pekka Salonen (2014), Steve Reich ( 2016) ), Jennifer Higdon (2018) and William Bolcom (2021).
Tania León, born in Havana, left Cuba as a refugee in 1967 and settled in New York. In this city she founded the Harlem Dance Theater and instituted the Brooklyn Philharmonic Community Concert Series.
The Cuban has been a guest conductor in the most prestigious orchestras in the world, such as the Beethovenhalle Orchestra of Bonn; the Gewandhausorchester, from Leipzig; the Santa Cecilia Orchestra, from Rome; and the South African National Symphony Orchestra.
Between 1994 and 2001 she was a Latin American music advisor for the American Composers Orchestra. In this role, she co-founded Sounds of the Americas, which aimed to highlight the contribution of Latin America to American culture, as well as encourage orchestras to expand their repertoire.
In 2010, she became the founder and artistic director of Composers Now, an organization with a mission to empower songwriters and celebrate their diverse voices.
In the year 2021 León received the pulitzer prize of Music 2021 for his piece “Stride”. Last December received honors from the John F. Kenned Centerand for the Performing Arts, for their contributions to American culture. While this same month she reported that the London Philharmonic Orchestra included her as a resident composer.
