2021 Pulitzer Prize for Music for Cuban composer Tania León,

June 15, 2021

Cuban composer Tania León, a resident of the United States, has been awarded the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her piece Stride, which premiered on February 13, 2020 by the New York Philharmonic under the baton of Jaap van Zweden.

The work was created as a joint commission from the New York Philharmonic and the Oregon Symphony as part of the so-called "Project 19," an initiative that commissioned 19 female composers to write scores to commemorate the centennial of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which recognized women's suffrage.

The Pulitzer jury defined Stride as "a musical journey full of surprises, with powerful brass and rhythmic motifs that incorporate the traditions of Black music from the United States and the Caribbean into a Western orchestral fabric." The Pulitzer adds to other awards León has received throughout her career, such as the New York Governor's Lifetime Achievement Award (1998), the Latin Grammy (in 2010, for her work To and fro), and the Victor Herbert Prize (2013).

Born in Havana in 1943, León studied at the National Conservatory of Cuba and moved to the United States in 1967. She studied composition with Ursula Mamlok and advanced her orchestral conducting studies with Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa. Between 1993 and 1997 she was an advisor for new music for Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic. Her catalog (which includes orchestral, vocal, and chamber works) highlights, in 1994, the commission of the opera Scourge of Hyacinths by the Munich Biennial and the premiere of the piece Horizons in 1999 by the NDR Hamburg Symphony Orchestra.

As an orchestra conductor, she has led major ensembles such as the New York Philharmonic, the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig, the Metropolitan Orchestra, the Suisse Romande Orchestra, the Academy of Santa Cecilia Orchestra of Rome, and the Beethovenhalle Orchestra of Bonn.