{"id":261979,"date":"2022-12-12T16:25:53","date_gmt":"2022-12-12T21:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=261979"},"modified":"2022-12-12T16:25:53","modified_gmt":"2022-12-12T21:25:53","slug":"tania-leon-the-essence-of-a-feat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/culture\/music-culture\/tania-leon-the-essence-of-a-feat\/","title":{"rendered":"Tania Le\u00f3n: the essence of a feat"},"content":{"rendered":"

The heartfelt gratitude of Tania Le\u00f3n for being distinguished with the Honor Award in this 2022 can be read on the official website of the Kennedy Center:<\/span><\/p>\n

Little did I imagine when I was studying in Havana that life would honor me with such a distinction! My first thoughts have been of my ancestors: they believed in my dreams, and what we lacked in material wealth they made up for in spirit, encouragement, and support. My sincerest thanks to the many people who have blessed my path by helping my talent flourish and giving me the opportunity to be heard. I am incredibly honored to join such a prestigious family of artists, and deeply grateful to the Kennedy Center for bestowing me with this incredible honor.<\/span><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The first four lines of her emotional message reflect, in my opinion, the inspiring essence that runs through the work of this extraordinary Afro-Cuban woman who has lived most of her career and her life in the United States. They are the reflection not only of her conscious and assumed identity, but of the cultural richness present in her ancestry. Tania Le\u00f3n\u2019s interest in making it clear, for those who come to know her, can be seen in the first lines of her <\/span>presentation in Wikipedia<\/b><\/a>, as if her ancestors \u2014 French, Spanish, Chinese, African \u2014 welcomed us, the ethnic-cultural mix of which she is made, a legacy received through education in a proud and secure family and that have marked not only her work, but also the character that she had to chisel with a blow of determination, effort and unlimited desire to create.<\/span><\/p>\n

The forging of irreducible self-esteem in a black and Cuban adolescent who wanted to broaden her knowledge, grow as a professional by choosing the path that seemed best to her to achieve it, must have been decisive in Tania Le\u00f3n to consider redesigning her own life outside her country and away from her immediate family.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Tania Leon the girl.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The field in which she proposed to develop was not common, nor frequent in her peers: very few black Cuban women with ostensible gifts for the so-called classical music and opera art had managed to rise beyond popular music. As few references, the extremely talented sopranos Rita Montaner \u2014 who had to diversify the fields for her artistic expression to reach other spaces and audiences; Xiomara Alfaro \u2014 without opportunities to develop as a bel canto soprano, also had to take other expressive paths; and Zoila G\u00e1lvez, clinging to opera singing and teaching until the end, without being able to interest the production houses to leave sound traces that would bequeath us forever the mythical beauty of her voice.<\/span><\/p>\n

Closer to Tania, we should mention who would be her teacher at the Alejandro Garc\u00eda Caturla Conservatory, in Havana in 1963, the brilliant pianist Zenaida Manfug\u00e1s, who did not achieve all that her talent deserved, neither in Cuba nor when she emigrated.<\/span><\/p>\n

Without there being a female precedent in conducting symphonic and chamber music in Cuba, this was a field open to the interest of the young Le\u00f3n.<\/span><\/p>\n

Her goal was Paris, but it eluded her. She left Cuba in 1967 alone, benefited from the so-called Freedom Flights, determined to go after her purpose: to expand her music studies as much as possible at a time when she had completed a degree in music education at the Hubert de Blanck Conservatory in Havana, after having obtained the piano teachership that led her to her initial studies of theory and music theory at the Carlos A. Peyrellade Conservatory.<\/span><\/p>\n

She settled in New York, where she managed to enter New York University under the tutelage of German-American composer and pedagogue Ursula Mamlok. Two years later, Tania obtained her first professional achievement by becoming a founding member and first music director of Arthur Mitchell\u2019s Dance Theater of Harlem.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since then, her link with the Afro-American artistic community has been important and enduring, and it has marked other relevant milestones such as her status, in the 1990s, as musical director of the Alvin Alley American Dance Theater, and <\/span>The Little Rock Nine<\/span><\/i> opera, which she wrote in 2017 inspired by the events in Arkansas 20 years before: a momentous episode in the fight for the civil rights of Afro-Americans.<\/span><\/p>\n