Alvin Singleton: New York Times: Nearly 50 Years After Leaving, a Composer Returns to Cuba to Conduct Her Work [Tania León conducts “Indígena”]

The composer Tania León, in 2007. “I arrived here as a pianist, and I am going back as a composer and conductor,” Ms. León, 73, said in a telephone interview. Credit Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times

The website of the Afro-Cuban composer and conductor Tania Justina León (b. 1943) is http://www.tanialeon.com/; she is also profiled at AfriClassical.com.

Alvin Singleton forwards this article:

The New York Times

By MICHAEL COOPER

NOV. 1, 2016

For the first time since she left for the United States nearly 50 years ago, the composer and conductor Tania León will perform in her native Cuba later this month, conducting the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba in a program featuring one of her own works.

“I arrived here as a pianist, and I am going back as a composer and conductor, “ Ms. León, 73, said in a telephone interview. She lamented that her mother, who died two years ago, would not be there to see her performance at the National Theater in Havana on Nov. 13.

Ms. León, who left Cuba in 1967 to pursue music, has played an active role in shaping American musical life since then, especially as a composer.

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Ms. León, who grew up hearing the National Symphony Orchestra, will conduct it in one of her pieces, “Indígena,” which is influenced by Cuban music, and in works by Alberto Ginastera. 

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Going back to conduct her music in her native land is, she said, “spectacular” — and moving. “Emotionally it’s something that I’m starting to work with,” she said. “ I have to do my best.”

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Thanks Bill. Hope all is well with you.  Best,  Alvin  [Alvin Singleton]