An Evening with Tania León, A Fundraiser
October 28, 2024 @ 6:00PM — 9:00PM Eastern Time (US & Canada) Add to Calendar
The Africa Center: 1280 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10029 Get Directions
Please join us to support The Harlem Chamber Players
Please join us for this intimate fundraising event to support The Harlem Chamber Players and our work, including community and educational programs. Many of our concerts are free and open to the public, and when we do charge admission, ticket prices cover less than 20% of the costs of producing the concert. We need your support to continue bringing live affordable and accessible music uptown.
Join us for music, an informal conversation with the Pulitzer Prize winning composer and Kennedy Center honoree Tania León. This evening will include performances by members of The Harlem Chamber Players and light fare. Founder and executive director Liz Player will interview Tania León. Bring your own question to a brief Q&A session with the audience!
FEATURING
Special Guest of Honor Tania León
Claire Chan, Violin
Ashley Horne, Violin
William Frampton, Viola
Wayne Smith, Cello
Empanadas, wines, and dessert will be served.
RSVP no later than October 20th.
ABOUT TANIA LEÓN
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 also held Carnegie Hall’s Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair for its 2023-2024 season.
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).
León has received Honorary Doctorate Degrees from Colgate University, Oberlin, SUNY Purchase College, and The Curtis Institute of Music, and served as U.S. Artistic Ambassador of American Culture in Madrid, Spain. A CUNY Distinguished Professor Emerita, she was awarded a 2018 United States Artists Fellowship, Chamber Music America’s 2022 National Service Award, and Harvard University’s 2022 Luise Vosgerchian Teaching Award. In 2023, Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library acquired Tania’s León’s archive.
ABOUT THE HARLEM CHAMBER PLAYERS
The Harlem Chamber Players is an ethnically diverse collective of professional musicians dedicated to bringing high caliber, affordable, accessible live music to people in the Harlem community and beyond. Founded in 2008, The Harlem Chamber Players annually presents a rich season of formal live concerts, indoors, outdoors, and online. They also promote arts inclusion and equal access to the arts, bringing live music to underserved communities and promoting shared community arts and cultural engagement. The group was first inspired by the late Janet Wolfe, a long-time patron of minority musicians and founder of the NYC Housing Authority Symphony Orchestra. The Harlem Chamber Players have presented culturally relevant programs at numerous venues throughout the city and collaborated with many other arts organizations. The Harlem Chamber Players are also Artists-in-residence at the Harlem School of the Arts.
They have been featured on national radio on WQXR as well as The Greene Space at WQXR and WNYC. The Harlem Chamber Players have also been mentioned in articles in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Musical America, and on NPR, NBC, and Here and Now on ABC. The Harlem Chamber Players were awarded the 2022 Sam Miller Award for the Performing Arts administered by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.