Tania León's Stride: A Polyrhythmic Life, Madrid

Author: Alejandro L. Madrid
Format: Paperback, 280 pages
Publisher: University of Illinois Press (2022)
ISBN: 9780252086014

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

About Alejandro L. Madrid:

Alejandro L. Madrid is a professor of musicology at Cornell University. He is the author of the award winning In Search of Julián Carrillo and Sonido 13 and coauthor of Danzón: Circum-Caribbean Dialogues in Music and Dance.