The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra is the lead organization in commissioning composer Tania Leon for an orchestral work to premiere during the orchestra’s 2021-22 season.
The commission is one of six to composers of color through grants from New Music USA’s Amplifying Voices Program, supported by the Sphinx Venture Fund.
Geoffrey Robson, the orchestra’s interim artistic director, in a news release announcing the commission, called the opportunity to perform new music by Leon “one of the great highlights of the season, and a great artistic honor.”
Leon composed music for an opera about the Little Rock Nine, in collaboration with historian Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and librettist Thulani Davis. Graduates of the University of Central Arkansas in Conway previewed portions of the opera in 2017; the full work, which Leon expected to finish the following year, has not yet had a public performance.
Leon, born in Havana, Cuba, settled in New York in 1967 and has played important roles at Dance Theater of Harlem, Brooklyn Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic (as New Music Advisor).
The other five commissions: to Valerie Coleman from the Philadelphia Orchestra, to Juan Pablo Contreras from the Las Vegas Philharmonic, to Brian Raphael Nabors from the Berkeley (Calif.) Symphony, to Tyshawn Sorey from the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and to Shelley Washington from the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.
The independent panel choosing the six composers included composer Michael Abels, conductor Carolyn Kuan (who conducted the Arkansas Symphony in a pair of January concerts at Little Rock’s Robinson Center Performance Hall), media personality and musician Garrett McQueen, and artistic administrator Evans Mirageas.