Acclaimed composer, sought-after conductor, esteemed educator, tireless advocate for the arts--Tania León’s achievements encompass but also stretch far beyond contemporary classical music. Alejandro L. Madrid draws on oral history, archival work, and ethnography to offer the first in-depth biography of the artist. Breaking from a chronological account, Madrid looks at León through the issues that have informed and defined moments in her life and her professional works. León’s words become a starting ground--but also a counterpoint--to the accounts of the people in her orbit. What emerges is more than an extraordinary portrait of an artist's journey. It is a story of how a human being reacts to the challenges thrown at her by history itself, be it the Cuban revolution or the struggle for civil and individual rights.

Nuanced and multifaceted, Tania León's Stride looks at the life, legacy, and milieu that created and sustained one of the most important figures in American classical music.

Alejandro L. Madrid is a professor of musicology at Cornell University. He is the author of the award winning In Search of Julián Carrillo and Sonido 13 and coauthor of Danzón: Circum-Caribbean Dialogues in Music and Dance.

List of Figures ix

List of Music Examples xi

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction

Notes on a Biographical Counterpoint 1

Chapter 1 Tonic: The House on Salud Street 11

Chapter 2 Modulation and Displacement: cubana de adentro . . . cubana de afuera 33

Chapter 3 Syncopation and Color: Adapting to New Life Rhythms 59

Chapter 4 Direction: Leading in Music, Leading in Life 93

Chapter 5 Voice: Style and Idea in the Music of Tania León 126

Chapter 6 Canon: Representation, Identity, and Legacy 166

Epilogue Tania León’s Stride: An Echo that Reaches Our Ears 181

Appendix A List of Works 185

Appendix B Tania León’s Life 193

Notes 203

Bibliography 229

Index 241