On Sunday (December 4), Tania León was welcomed at The White House by President Joe Biden along with George Clooney, Gladys Knight, Amy Grant, and the four members of the Irish rock band U2 before all of them were feted at the 45th Kennedy Center Honors. And this weekend (December 9-11), the Detroit Symphony will perform her latest orchestral composition Pasajes, a work co-commissioned by five different orchestras led by the Arkansas Symphony (which premiered the work on April 9) through New Music USA’s Amplifying Voices program which fosters collaboration and collective action between US orchestras and composers toward racial and gender equity in classical music.
León has received extensive mainstream media coverage leading up to ceremony at the Kennedy Center, perhaps even more than when she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music last year for her orchestral composition Stride which received its world premiere performance by the New York Philharmonic just before the pandemic reached New York City. Particularly poignant and revelatory was Michael Andor Brodeur’s boldly-titled profile in The Washington Post, “Tania León changed the sound of being American.” But those of us in the new music community have been impacted, inspired and transformed by León as a musical creator–as well as an interpreter, educator, and organizer–for decades.
In fact, Tania León holds a very special place here at New Music USA in addition to her being one of the 11 composers involved in Amplifying Voices. Back in August 1999, just three months after NewMusicBox went online, my lengthy talk with her was the very first one-on-one NewMusicBox conversation with an individual composer, a tradition we continue to this day with our SoundLives podcasts. In all those years we have never spoken with anyone twice–until now. Given all the things that León has accomplished in the last 23 years, besides those aforementioned accolades and performances, we had plenty to talk about.
Of course, it was inevitable that we would talk about how the world has changed since 1999. There were so many things we could not have possibly anticipated, including the two most obvious ones: the events of September 11, 2001 and the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. And yet there were so many musical topics we talked about back then that have remained timely to this day–the importance of collaboration, awareness of and appreciation for all musical traditions, and the need for greater gender and racial inclusivity in our music-making and programming while at the same time being mindful of how labeling limits people.
“I don’t like to be categorized because my identity’s fluid,” she explained. “The one that I was last week is not the one that is coming to you right now. Every experience in my life molds me in ways that I never know where it’s going.”
One of the ways that León’s music has been categorized is that it displays “rhythmic inventiveness,” a by-product of her growing in Cuba.
“I don’t invent anything; that’s what I hear,” she exclaimed. “It might have to do with the fact that I grew up in a society or a culture that is very rhythmical. … But not everything is rhythmical; I write pieces that might be very slow, very lyrical, but my interpretation of life had to do in a way with the rhythm of life. Even when something is very slow, there’s a current which is behind, you know. It’s like, I’m talking to you right now, but the beating of my heart is very different than the rhythm of my conversation. … Rhythm is not what we translate as digga-da, digga-da. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It’s the rhythm of life. The rhythm of watching my plants when a leaf comes out and then, by next week, the leaf is bigger. There was a rhythm in that growth that I didn’t capture, but it would be interesting for me just to sit down and stare at the leaf for a week to see if I understand what is the process or what is the pace of the leaf growing up.”
I always defied categorization. I don't like to be categorized because my identity's fluid. And the one that I was last week is not the one that is coming to you right now. Every experience in my life molds me in ways that I never know where it's going.
Tania León
I get very interested when I have read accounts of my music talking about my rhythmical inventiveness. I don't invent anything. That's what I hear. And that is what I put on the page.
Tania León
The first time when you hear your pieces, ... you're there, but you're not there. You recognize some in the piece, but then others you don't recognize.
Tania León
We have all these techniques and all of these things that we employ, and we know what pitches to use and things like that. But for me, intuition is very important.
Tania León
I think that now we are starting to understand the weight of the new, which is not so new in a way, because this is the way the arts have been for centuries.
Tania León
As far as the concert hall is included, all genres of music count.
Tania León
Composition came out of the left field. It was not in my consciousness. I didn't have plans for something like that.
Tania León
I can conduct Stravinsky, play Hindemith, but I dance salsa.
Tania León
Not everybody has to write a symphony. What about the composer that writes tangos?
Tania León
I don't know what the sensation is for a human being to be with a microphone in front of millions of people shouting their name. I have no idea what that does to that human being. Some of these people that get to that kind of power might believe they're gods.
Tania León
I have never been involved in politics, even though I know politics is everything.
Tania León
I don't believe in what I've been told. I have had the experience really going against odds to accomplish anything. ... What is this person talking about that they are going to do for me that I cannot do for myself?
Tania León