FLATBUSH — Pulitzer Prize-winner and Kennedy Center honoree Tania León returned to Brooklyn College recently as part of President Michelle J. Anderson’s Presidential Lecture Series. The event also served as a platform to announce that Brooklyn College and its School of Visual, Media, and Performing Arts have launched the Tania León Chair of Music, the first endowed chair in music at the college. This pathbreaking chair was funded by The Tow Foundation and named in honor of León, who started teaching at the college in 1985, became a Tow Distinguished Professor in 2000, and retired as professor emeritus in 2019. Leonard Tow, who graduated from Brooklyn College in 1950, was also in the audience to support his longtime friend and mentee.
The President’s discussion with León, titled “You Gave Me Wings: A Rhythmic Life,” featured a conversation with President Anderson chronicling León’s extraordinary life from her migration from Cuba to her career as a world-renowned composer.
For León, it has been a life of surprises.
She talked about how her grandmother, a “force,” supported her love of music from age 4 and her grandfather wedging a standup piano in their small two-room home in Cuba so she could hone her craft. Her equally supportive parents were always with her, if not always physically, even after she left Cuba for the United States to eventually start her remarkable career in New York City — a career that took her to stages all over the world.
That spirit of mentoring and…
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