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A conversation between Kennedy Center Honoree Tania León and President Michelle J. Anderson. The evening will include a performance by members of the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music.
The evening will feature a conversation between Brooklyn College President Michelle J. Anderson and composer, conductor, and educator Tania León. The two will discuss León’s extraordinary life from her migration from Cuba to her career as a world-renowned composer. The evening will include a performance by members of the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music.
Tania León (b. Havana, Cuba) is highly regarded as a composer, conductor, educator, and advisor to arts organizations. Her orchestral work Stride, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, was awarded the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Music. In 2022, she was named a recipient of the 45th Annual Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime artistic achievements. In 2023, she was awarded the Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Music Composition from Northwestern University. Most recently, León became the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s next Composer-in-Residence—a post she will hold for two seasons, beginning in September 2023. She will also hold Carnegie Hall’s Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair for its 2023-2024 season.
Recent premieres include works for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, NDR Symphony Orchestra, Grossman Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, Modern Ensemble, Jennifer Koh’s project Alone Together, and The Curtis Institute. Appearances as guest conductor include Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille, Gewandhausorchester, Orquesta Sinfónica de Guanajuato, and Orquesta Sinfónica de Cuba, among others. Upcoming commissions feature a work for the League of American Orchestras, and a work for Claire Chase, flute, and The Crossing Choir with text by Rita Dove.
A founding member and first Music Director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, León instituted the Brooklyn Philharmonic Community Concert Series, co-founded the American Composers Orchestra’s Sonidos de las Américas Festivals, was New Music Advisor to the New York Philharmonic, and is the founder/Artistic Director of Composers Now, a presenting, commissioning and advocacy organization for living composers.
Honors include the New York Governor’s Lifetime Achievement, inductions into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and fellowship awards from ASCAP Victor Herbert Award and The Koussevitzky Music and Guggenheim Foundations, among others. She also received a proclamation for Composers Now by New York City Mayor, and the MadWoman Festival Award in Music (Spain). She has been awarded the XIX Premio SGAE for Iberian American Music Tomás Luis de Victoria 2023, becoming the first woman to be honored with the highest composition prize conferred by Spain. In 2024, she was awarded the Distinguished Artist Award for the International Society of Performing Arts.
León has received Honorary Doctorate Degrees from Colgate University, Oberlin, SUNY Purchase College, The Curtis Institute of Music, Columbia University, Jersey City University, and served as U.S. Artistic Ambassador of American Culture in Madrid, Spain. A CUNY Professor Emerita, she was awarded a 2018 United States Artists Fellowship, Chamber Music America’s 2022 National Service Award, Harvard University’s 2022 Luise Vosgerchian Teaching Award, and New York University’s 2023 Dorothy Height Award. In 2023, Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library acquired Tania’s León’s archive.
Conductor and baritone Malcolm J. Merriweather enjoys a versatile career with performances ranging from the songs of Margaret Bonds to gems of the symphonic choral repertoire. The baritone can be heard on the Grammy-nominated recording of Paul Moravec’s “Sanctuary Road” (NAXOS). Hailed by Opera News as “moving…expertly interpreted,” Margaret Bonds: The Ballad of the Brown King & Selected Songs (AVIE) has earned considerable praise around the world. Merriweather is an associate professor at the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College.
Since 2016, Michelle J. Anderson has been the 10th president of Brooklyn College. Under her leadership, the campus established the Brooklyn College Cancer Center, obtained AACSB accreditation for the Murray Koppelman School of Business, initiated the “We Stand Against Hate” program, diversified the faculty and college leadership, opened the Immigrant Student Success Office, launched the Healthcare Career, enriched the LGBTQ+ Resource Center, earned top rankings for the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema, and opened the state-of-the-art Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts and the Don Buchwald Theater.
As president, Anderson prioritizes mentoring across the campus. She launched the Tow Mentoring Initiative, which allows students to engage in transformative research opportunities with faculty mentors, and which has become a signature campus program. At the same time, under her leadership, the campus Alumni Affairs and Career Services offices have coordinated efforts to develop alumni mentors to help students enter the work world.
Anderson has stewarded Brooklyn College through the COVID-19 pandemic, working hard to protect the health and safety of the community. In development, she focused on student support, raising funds for emergency grants, completion grants, internship stipends, mental health resources, the food pantry, and other critical student services.
Anderson has led Brooklyn College through a time of excellent recognition, including:
Anderson holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she earned the Chancellor’s Award for outstanding academic achievement. She earned a J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was notes editor of the Yale Law Journal. Following law school, she clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for Judge William A. Norris. Anderson has been dean of the CUNY School of Law, professor at Villanova University School of Law, and a visiting professor at Georgetown University Law Center and Yale Law School.
Anderson is a leading scholar on the law of rape and sexual assault. She is the recipient of numerous honors, including the New York City Bar Association’s Diversity and Inclusion Champion Award. She has also been honored by the Feminist Press with the Susan Rosenberg Zalk Award and by the Center for Women in Government and Civil Society with a Public Service Leadership Award. In 2017, Brooklyn Legal Services gave her a Champion of Justice Award.
