Tania León's Stride: A Polyrhythmic Life

By Alejandro Madrid

Book Overview

Acclaimed composer, sought-after conductor, esteemed educator, tireless advocate for the arts--Tania Le?n's achievements encompass but also stretch far beyond contemporary classical music. Alejandro L. Madrid draws on oral history, archival work, and ethnography to offer the first in-depth biography of the artist. Breaking from a chronological account, Madrid looks at Le?n through the issues that have informed and defined moments in her life and her professional works. Le?n's words become a starting ground--but also a counterpoint--to the accounts of the people in her orbit. What emerges is more than an extraordinary portrait of an artist's journey. It is a story of how a human being reacts to the challenges thrown at her by history itself, be it the Cuban revolution or the struggle for civil and individual rights.

Nuanced and multifaceted, Tania Le?n's Stride looks at the life, legacy, and milieu that created and sustained one of the most important figures in American classical music.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0252043944
• ISBN13: 9780252043949
• Release Date: January 2022
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Length: 280 Pages