Yamaha Article

BUENA PARK, CA (October 08, 2004) — It would be difficult to find a more active musician than Cuban-born composer, educator, conductor and Yamaha artist Tania León. Her work, which encompasses the influences of many compositional traditions, appears regularly on concert stages throughout the world. She was a founding member and the first music director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, and the recipient of a New York Governor’s Lifetime Achievement Award. She is the Tow Professor in Music at the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music, the subject of profiles on ABC, CBS, CNN and PBS, and in demand as a world-class conductor. And now her schedule just got busier.

This past June, León presented three artists she considers deserving of wider recognition at Brooklyn-based 651 Arts. Included was Mari Kimura, a violinist who works with interactive computers, for whom León wrote a piece that the two premiered in Hong Kong. This piece has now been recorded for inclusion on a CD of her music being produced by Bridge Records. The other members of the trio were Gregory Rahming, a baritone who has performed in The Phantom of the Opera, and Rolando Morales-Matos, head percussionist of The Lion King and faculty member of The Curtis Institute.

Then, at the National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta this past July, León performed three concerts with her musical ensemble Son Sonora ("springing forth/to be with sound" in Spanish). On the program was her composition Duende, commissioned in 2003 by Fest der Kontinente, in Berlin, Germany in honor of composer Gyorgy Ligeti’s eightieth birthday.

Next November, the Miller Theatre of Columbia University will devote an entire evening to her compositions. And in February 2005, she will be off to Marseilles, France to conduct a concert of works by John Adams, Steven Sondheim, Duke Ellington and … Tania León.

In the midst of this whirlwind, she has a good deal to say about her affiliation with Yamaha. "When the people at Yamaha collaborate with an artist, they are incredibly supportive," she relates. "For example, there was a production of a piece of mine called Drummin’ that was premiered in Miami with the New World Symphony. I later took it to Hamburg. Yamaha supplied me with everything I needed to make it happen. It’s a wonderful relationship. Yamaha is a quality company that helps me maintain the standards I look for."

To learn more, write Yamaha Corporation of America at P.O. Box 6600, Buena Park, CA 90622-6600; telephone (714) 522-9011; or e-mail infostation@yamaha.com.