"Aboundingly earthy, rhythmic and embellished by deeply moving nostalgia, [Scourge of Hyacinths] stands at the crossroads of every musical emotion. The constant pulsation and incessant murmur that seethes under the pure lines of song weave these different genres into magnificent bouquets....The direction by Robert Wilson creates a distance which, far from chilling the intention, makes it incandescent." Tribune de Genève
"[Indígena] is art of the highest order." The Boston Phoenix

Feb. 5 - Works by Tania León performed as part of the 2011 Festival of Contemporary Art Music at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. libarts.wsu.edu/artmusic/

Feb. 12 - Hebras d' Luz, Martha Mooke, violinist: Puente Sonoro: A Festival of Latin American Musics, presented by the Williams College Department of Music. music.williams.edu/node/1333

Feb. 13 - ¡Paisanos Semos! and Bailarín, The Philadelphia Classical Guitar Society: ¡Duo Caramba!, Settlement Music School, 416 Queen Street, Philadelphia. www.phillyguitar.org/

Feb. 21 - Works by Tania León will be performed as part of the second annual Music of Now marathon, Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway at 95th Street, New York, NY www.symphonyspace.org/event/6470-the-music-of-now

March 9 - Four Pieces for Cello, Alison Rowe: Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, University of Wisconsin, Mills Hall, 455 N. Park St., Madison WI. Open to the public www.arts.wisc.edu/events/show/38413

March 13 - Two Cuban Songs (Drume Negrita & El Mansiero), Choral Chameleon: "She Sings!" — an evening celebrating the voice of American Women Composers and presented in collaboration with The Hitchcock Institute for Studies in American Music, at The Fourth Universalist Society, 76th and Central Park West, NYC. www.brownpapertickets.com/event/129537

March 18 - The piano music of Tania León featured at the Ninth Festival of Women Composers, March 17-20 at Indiana University of Pennsylvania's Gorell Recital Hall. The performance is part of a Lecture-Recital with session chair Jennifer Kelly and pianist Margaret Lucia. iup.edu/music/fwc/default.aspx

March 28 - Alma, New York New Music Ensemble, the Americas Society, 680 Park Avenue, NYC. as.americas-society.org/calevent.php?id=100

May 14 - Cuarteto No. 2, World Premiere, the Harlem Quartet, Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway at 95th Street, NYC. www.symphonyspace.org/event/6500-wall-to-wall-sonidos

May 26 - Tania León gives a lecture entitled Border Crossings at the prestigious Mosse Lectures at the University of Humboldt, Berlin. Click here for more information.

June 9, 11 - Rimas Tropicales (text by Carlos Pintado), World Premiere, San Francisco Girls Chorus, San Francisco Conservatory, 50 Oak St., San Francisco, CA. www.sfgirlschorus.org/closing_night2

A vital personality on today's music scene, Tania León is highly regarded as a composer and conductor and is recognized for her contributions as an educator and advisor to arts organizations.

In March 2003, the Los Angeles Master Chorale premiered León's Rezos (Prayers), in Los Angeles and New York City. The work sets the words of Jamaica Kinkaid. In March 2001, León's opera Scourge of Hyacinths received three performances during the Festival Centro Historico in Mexico City.  Staged and designed by Robert Wilson, and conducted by the composer, the work is based on a radio play by Nobel Prize-winner Wole Soyinka. The opera was commissioned in 1994 by the Munich Biennale, where it won the BMW Prize as best new work of opera theatre in the festival. In 1999, it was given seventeen performances to great acclaim by the Grand Théâtre de Genève in Switzerland, the Opèra de Nancy et de Lorraine in France and the St. Pálten Festspielhaus in Austria. The aria "Oh Yemanja" (Mother's Prayer) from Hyacinths was recorded by Dawn Upshaw on her Nonesuch CD "The World So Wide." She most recently performed it at the Ojai Festival in June 2001, where Ms. León was a featured composer.

León's Desde... was premiered by the American Composers orchestra in March 2000 in Carnegie Hall. Its composition was supported by a grant from the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation. Horizons for orchestra was written for the NDR Symphony Orchestra in Hamburg and was premiered there at the July 1999 Hammoniale Festival, with Peter Ruzicka conducting. In August 2000, the work had its United States premiere at the Tanglewood Contemporary Music Festival, Stefan Asbury conducting. León herself conducted the work with the Orchestre Symphonique de Nancy in March 2001.

Seven commissioned chamber works by León were premiered in the year 2000, in venues including the Library of Congress (Fanfarria, celebrating the Copland Centennial), the Kennedy Center (At the Fountain of Mpindelela, in the festival "Africa! Spirit Ascending"), New York City's Merkin Concert Hall (Canto, for baritone Tom Buckner and Continuum), and Joe's Pub at the Public Theater (Ivo, Ivo, for Sequitur).

A brief discography of León's music includes Indégena, an all-León collection of chamber music on CRI; the orchestral works Batá and Carabalá on the Louisville Orchestra's First Edition Records; Rituél, a solo piano work, on Albany Records; an arrangement of the Cuban song El Manisero for Chanticleer on Teldec; Journey for the Jubal Trio, also on CRI. Her music is also featured on Cendim, Newport Classic, Leonarda, Mode Opus One, and Urtext.

Born in Havana, León has lived in New York City since 1967. At the invitation of Arthur Mitchell, she became a founding member and the first musical director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem in 1969, establishing the Dance Theatre's music department, music school, and orchestra. She instituted the Brooklyn Philharmonic Community Concert Series in 1978. From 1993 to 1997 she was New Music Advisor to Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic. She served as Latin American Music Advisor to the American Composers Orchestra until 2001, during which time she co-founded the award-winning Sonidos de las Americas festivals.

León has received awards for her compositions from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Endowment for the Arts, Chamber Music America, the Lila Wallace/Reader's Digest Fund, NYSCA, ASCAP, and Meet the Composer, among others. In 1998 she held the Fromm Residency at the American Academy in Rome; she has also been a resident at Yaddo (supported by a MacArthur Foundation Award), and to the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center in Italy.

León was the recipient in 2000 of the Tow Award at Brooklyn College, where she is Professor of Music. She received an Honorary Doctorate degree from Colgate University in 1999. She has held master-classes at the Hamburg Musikschule in Germany, and has been Visiting Lecturer at Harvard University and Visiting Professor of Composition at Yale University.