This year’s festival art work is Triple Escapement, digital painting, 2011.
PULLMAN The 22nd annual Festival of Contemporary Art Music, featuring guest composer Tania León, will be presented Feb. 3-5 by WSU’s School of Music in Pullman.
Music faculty and students will perform original works by León at the festival’s capstone concert at 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 5, in Bryan Hall Theatre. All concerts are free to the public.
Cuban-born León has emerged as a vital personality on today’s music scene. She is highly regarded as a composer, pianist and conductor and recognized for her accomplishments as an educator and advisor to arts organizations.
León’s music is as diverse as her French, Spanish, African and Chinese lineage. Her technical compositions are characterized by rhythmic and colorful sound and movement between tempo, musical line, timbre and texture. They also are laced with elements of gospel, jazz and traditional Latin American and African rhythms.
New York Times music reviewer Anthony Tommasini wrote, “Naturally, these distinctive styles clash in her music, though in a dynamic sense, as in a good fight, a feisty confrontation.”
León’s honors include:
- 2010 Latin Grammy Award nomination in the category of best classical contemporary composition for “To and Fro (4 MOODS),” performed by Nodus Ensemble
- 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship
- New York Governor’s Lifetime Achievement Award
- honorary doctoral degrees from Colgate University, Oberlin College and Purchase College
In 2010 León was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters for her compositions.
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Public concert schedule
Feb. 3
11 a.m. Student Composers Concert, Kimbrough Concert Hall.
8 p.m. Faculty Composers Concert, Bryan Hall Theater.
Feb. 4
3 p.m. Electroacoustic Concert, Kimbrough.
Feb. 5
8 p.m. Guest Composers Concert: compositions by Tania León, Bryan Theater.
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León co-founded the Dance Theatre of Harlem and is a distinguished professor of music composition at Brooklyn College, N.Y. She received her formal musical training at Carlos Alfredo Peyrellade Conservatory in Havana, New York University, the Juilliard School and the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood.
The festival begins at 11 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 3, in Kimbrough Concert Hall with a recital of new works by WSU student composers. A concert featuring new works by faculty composers Ryan M. Hare, David Jarvis, Aleksander Sternfeld-Dunn and Gregory Yasinitsky will be at 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 3, in Bryan Hall Theatre. An all-electroacoustic concert will be performed at 3 p.m. Friday, Feb. 4, in Kimbrough Concert Hall.
For two decades the Festival of Contemporary Art Music has showcased contemporary classical music, presenting concerts of new original compositions by students, faculty and a visiting artist. In 1989 the inaugural festival featured guest composer Michael Schelle, and over the years the festival has included such notables as William Kraft, Libby Larson, Morten Lauridsen, John Corigliano, Eric Whitacre and Charles Argersinger, a retired WSU professor and the festival’s founder.