Leonard Bernstein by Paul R. Laird, and: Leonard Bernstein: Ein New Yorker in Wien = A New Yorker in Vienna ed. by Werner Hanak und Adina Seeger (review)

process, conversations between Madrid and León while listening to her music, and Madrid’s conversations with Cornell colleague and Latin American composer Sergio Cote-Barco as they discussed León’s music (pp. 8–10). Many sections in “Voice” are largely written in the composer’s own words, giving glimpses of her intuition, mystical character, and her flirtations with the avant-garde, jazz, and African and Afro-Caribbean drumming traditions. She says, “Sometimes I’ll come back to a score days after finishing a piece and there are whole sections that I cannot identify or remember writing. I seriously wonder, ‘Who wrote that?’ ” (p. 129). This is just one of many insightful revelations on her compositional process. Madrid also includes the voices of León’s collaborators, composers, musicologists, performers, and music critics. Ample music excerpts and score sections accompany the conversations centering on her compositions. León’s legacy is still evolving, and of all of the chapters, the content of “Canon” will expand as her legacy continues to reach new generations of creative minds, a fact Madrid acknowledges when he writes, “Tania León is still busy composing, conducting, teaching, and organizing, so we can’t be certain what her final artistic legacy will be” (p. 179). The concept of artistic cartography in the section “Representation: Mapping Tania León in U.S. Music Historiography” is intriguing as a means to represent León’s impact (p. 168). In the epilogue, Madrid features León’s Stride, a composition commissioned and premiered by the New York Philharmonic in Project 19, an initiative to commission nineteen female composers for the centennial celebration of the Nineteenth Amendment, commemorating the year that women were granted the right to vote (p. 181). Stride is dedicated to Susan B. Anthony and her determination. At the premier of Stride, León reminded the audience that before the 1965 Voting Rights Act, women of color were not guaranteed the right to vote. The book closes with two appendixes and an index. Appendix A is a list of León’s works, current as of June 2020, and appendix B is a timeline of events in León’s life displayed alongside music news and political and cultural news. Appendix B is a significant strength of this book, making this a worthy read across history, politics, US and Cuba relations, the Black diaspora, feminism, and Caribbean culture. I found myself revisiting appendix B as I dwelled on León’s experiences and accomplishments, and how her life events are inseparable from simultaneous moments in politics and her lived experiences across intersections of race, gender, class, and culture. Madrid’s biographical counterpoint masterfully portrays the polyrhythmic life of Tania León. His use of photos and personal interviews vividly tells León’s life story. The prevalence of this intimacy adds flavor—a taste of memoir—inviting readers to devour the book like liner notes. The juxtaposition of firsthand accounts with historical context and political drama creates a page turner—a biography containing strides that many outside of music will find illuminating.