[Tania Justina León]
Times Union
Albany, NY
By Joseph Dalton Special to the Times Union
Published 12:01 a.m., Sunday, April 24, 2011
“The eight spirituals on the program (14 settings were originally commissioned in 2004 and 2005) are by composers of many heritages including Haitian (Daniel Bernard Roumain), Jewish (Stephen Dankner), Chinese (Bun-Ching Lam) and Cuban (Tania León).
“As an example of just how deeply spirituals have permeated our culture, Miller recalls that he grew up singing 'Go Down Moses' at Passover. 'I thought it was a Jewish song until I was 20 or so,' he says.
“Finally, Miller points to a little-known aspect of Martha Graham's choreography to 'Appalachian Spring,' that he describes as 'an eight-minute Civil War pantomime with slaves arriving in the night.' That section was excised from Copland's popular suite. But the ASO will perform the complete ballet in Copland's version for full orchestra.” [The website of the Afro-Cuban composer and conductor Tania León (b. 1943) is http://www.tanialeon.com/; she is also profiled at AfriClassical.com]
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