Cuban-born American composer, conductor, and educator Tania León is one of the most acclaimed and influential musicians of her, or any other, generation. She was the first Latin American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Music in 2021; in 2022, she was awarded a Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime artistic achievements; in 2023, she received the Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in music composition from Northwestern University and became the first woman to be honored with the highest composition prize conferred by Spain, the XIX Premio SGAE for Iberian American Music Tomás Luis de Victoria; and in 2025, she was the recipient of the Recording Academy’s Special Merit Award, the Trustees Award.
As a composer, León has been commissioned by leading orchestras around the world, held Carnegie Hall’s Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair for its 2023–2024 season, and currently serves as a composer in residence with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. As a conductor, she studied under Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa, and has guest conducted the New York Philharmonic, Gewandhausorchester, Santa Cecilia Orchestra, and many more.
As an educator, she has guest lectured and served as visiting professor at Harvard University, Yale University, Chicago University, Musikschule in Hamburg, and others, and has received honorary doctorate degrees from the Juilliard School, Columbia University, Oberlin College and Conservatory, Curtis Institute of Music, Colgate University, SUNY Purchase, New Jersey City University, and Brooklyn College.
León has served as an advisor to the New York Philharmonic and American Composers Orchestra. In 2010, she founded Composers Now, a presenting, commissioning, and advocacy organization for living composers. She was also a founding member and first music director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, founder of the Brooklyn Philharmonic's Community Concert Series, and cofounder of the American Composers Orchestra’s Sonidos de las Américas Festivals.
Her other honors include the New York Governor’s Lifetime Achievement Award, inductions into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and fellowship awards from ASCAP (including the Victor Herbert Award), the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation, among many others.