Tania León Named 2025 Recipient of the William Schuman Award
By Afton Markay(Photo credit: Rob Davidson)
Columbia University School of the Arts announced that composer Tania León is the 2025 recipient of the William Schuman Award.
León is the tenth recipient of the award that recognizes the lifetime achievement of an American composer whose works have been widely performed and generally acknowledged to be of lasting significance. She will receive an unrestricted grant of $75,000, one of the largest given to an American composer.
The prize will be awarded to León at a concert at Miller Theatre at Columbia University on Sept. 25. The performance will showcase a program spanning nearly four decades of the composer’s prolific output, including two New York premieres. Featured performers include sopranos Rachel Doehring Jackson and Sophie Thompson. Na’Zir McFadden will conduct the Bergamot String Quartet.
Professor Chris Washburne, Chair of the Department of Music at Columbia University said in a press release, “Tania León is a living treasure and a force of nature. Through her unique and exceptional artistry, as well as her advocacy for living American composers including those of the Latin American diaspora, she has reshaped and elevated the new music scene in the United States and beyond. Her ongoing legacy — including her long history of music-making and social engagement in Harlem, Columbia’s own neighborhood — is felt both globally and within our campus walls. The Music Department congratulates Maestra León on yet another well-deserved accolade.”
León held Carnegie Hall’s Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair for its 2023-24 season and currently serves as Composer-in-Residence with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. She has been commissioned by leading orchestras, ensembles, and soloists around the world, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, International Contemporary Ensemble, Ensemble Modern, The Curtis Institute, The Crossing Choir, and many more. Her opera, “Scourge of Hyacinths” was commissioned by Munich Biennale for New Music Theater in 1994.
León studied conducting under Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa. She has guest conducted the New York Philharmonic, Santa Cecilia Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille, the Gewandhausorchester, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Guanajuato, and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Cuba, among others. She has guest-lectured and served as Visiting Professor at Harvard University, Yale University, The University of Chicago, and Musikschule in Hamburg, to name a few. In 2021, León was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music for her work, “Stride.”
The William Schuman Award was established in 1981 and named in honor of Schuman, the first recipient. Previous winners are John Luther Adams, Pauline Oliveros, John Zorn, Steve Reich, Hugo Weisgall, Milton Babbitt, Gunther Schuller, and David Diamond.
Read Related Stories
Categories
News
