Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, conductor and educator Tania León is the recipient of the Fall 2022 Luise Vosgerchian Teaching Award, which will be conferred in a special ceremony 4-5:30 p.m. Monday, November 14 at Agassiz Theatre at Harvard University.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will feature bassist Devon Gates ‘23, flutist Mai Nguyen ‘23 and founder of the Harvard Students Composer Festival Veronica Leahy ‘23. A conversation with León will be moderated by Callie Crossley, Emmy Award-winning journalist at WGBH. Jack Megan, Director of the Office for the Arts, Carol Oja, the William Powell Mason Professor of Music, and Carolyn Abbate, the Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser University Professor and Chair of the Harvard University Department of Music, will also be presenters at the ceremony.

The award is administered by the Office for the Arts at Harvard University, in consultation with the Department of Music. 

Born in Havana, Cuba, León 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. A founding member 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. She has been a guest lecturer and visiting artist at Harvard University, and the Harvard Wind Ensemble premiered her work Cumba Cumbakin in 2010. 

Earlier this year, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced León as one of five Honorees who will receive the 45th Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime artistic achievements on December 4 in Washington, DC.

More info HERE.