ABOUT THE BOOK

Acclaimed composer, sought-after conductor, esteemed educator, tireless advocate for the arts–Tania Leon’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 Leon through the issues that have informed and defined moments in her life and her professional works. Leon’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 Leon’s Stride looks at the life, legacy, and milieu that created and sustained one of the most important figures in American classical music.

Read | qa-with-alejandro-madrid-author-of-tania-leons-stride

* Publication supported by a commission from Brandon Fradd and The Newburgh Institute for the Arts and Ideas, and by a grant from the General Fund of the American Musicological Society, supported in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

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BOOK DETAILS

Pages: 280 pages

Dimensions: 6.125 x 9.25 in

Illustrations: 40 black & white photographs, 26 music examples, 1 table