Sunday, January 26, 2014

BroadwayWorld.com: Tania León's 70th Birthday Celebrated as Part of 'Uncommon Women' at Symphony Space 2/7/14

Tania Justina León (b. 1943) is featured at AfriClassical.com and has a web site at http://www.tanialeon.com/


Tower, Leon, Oppens and Cassatt Set for UNCOMMON WOMEN at Symphony Space, 2/7
Tower, Leon, Oppens and Cassatt Set for UNCOMMON WOMEN at Symphony Space, 2/7

January 16, 2014

On Friday, February 7 (7:30 pm), Symphony Space pays tribute to "the women warriors of new music" with a concert marking a quartet of anniversaries: composer Joan Tower's 75th birthday (Sept. 6, 2013), composer Tania Léon's 70th birthday (May 14, 2013), pianist Ursula Oppens's 70th (Feb. 2, 2014), and the 30th anniversary season of the Cassatt String Quartet.

Oppens will join the Cassatt in the world premiere of Léon's Ethos for Piano and String Quartet, and will also perform Tower's Dumbarton Quintet (2008). Beethoven's String Quartet No. 10 "The Harp" (Op. 74) completes the program; Tower has cited his music as a particular inspiration, subtitling her 1985 piano concerto "Homage to Beethoven."

The event is part of Symphony Space's The Music of Now series, running from February 1 through the end of March. Tickets are $32, $27 for members, and $20 for those under 30, available at www.symphonyspace.org.

Léon's Ethos is dedicated to the memory of Isaiah Sheffer, the late Founding Artistic Director of Symphony Space and a longtime acquaintance of the composer. Each of the three movements is titled after lines from poems by Isaiah's daughter, Susannah Sheffer, as found in her collection This Kind of Knowing (2013, Cooper Dillon Books):


I. In the cage where the heart paces,
II. blaze of lights
III. Viridian. Ochre. Cobalt blue.


Ethos was commissioned by Symphony Space with support from the New York State Council on the Arts Individual Artists Program.



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