Claudette Sorel and Tania León

Synopsis

Claudette Sorel was a pianist, educator and passionate advocate for equal rights for women in music, especially composers and performers. In 1996, she founded the Sorel Organization to expand opportunities and stretch the boundaries for promising emerging female musicians through a variety of collaborations and scholarships, and to acknowledge notable masters in the field.

On today’s date in 2022, for example, Cuban-born American composer Tania J. León was awarded the Organization’s Sorel Legacy Medallion for her life and work in music.

While still in her 20s, León became a founding member and the first musical director of the Dance Theater of Harlem, establishing its music department, school, and orchestra. She has composed a number of both large scale and chamber works that have been performed here and abroad. In February 2020, the New York Philharmonic premiered her orchestral piece Stride and in 2021 that work was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music.

León said, “Stride was inspired by women’s rights pioneer Susan B. Anthony. She kept pushing and pushing and moving forward, walking with firm steps until she got [it] done. That is what Stride means. Something that is moving forward.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Tania León (b. 1943): Batá; Louisville Orchestra; Lawrence Leighton Smith, conductor; Soundmark CD 48027

On This Day

Births

• 1897 - Hungarian born American conductor and occasional composer/arranger George Szell, in Budapest. He was led the Cleveland Orchestra from 1946 until the time of his death in 1970.

Deaths

• 1863 - Austrian composer Franz Xaver Gruber, 75, in Hallen (near Salzburg). He composed the famous Christmas Carol, “Silent Night” (Stille Nacht), in 1818, while serving as a church organist and schoolmaster in Oberndorf.

Premieres

• 1896 - Hugo Wolf: opera Der Corregidor (The Governor) (first version) in Mannheim at the Nationaltheater

• 1920 - Gershwin: musical revue, George White’s Scandals of 1920, at the Globe Theater in New York City

• 1922 - American premiere of Vaughan Williams: Pastoral Symphony (No. 3), at the Litchfield County Choral Festival in Norfolk, Connecticut, with the composer conducting. The world premiere had taken place in London on Jan. 26, 1922.

• 1927 - Prokofiev: ballet, Pas d’Acier, in Paris, by the Ballet Russe

• 1933 - Weill: The Seven Deadly Sins of the Bourgeoisie, in Paris, text by Bertolt Brecht

• 1945 - Britten: opera Peter Grimes, in London at Sadler’s Wells Theater

• 1951 - Dutilleux: Symphony No. 1, in Paris

• 1972 - Copland: Three Latin American Sketches, at Philharmonic Hall (now Avery Fisher Hall) in New York City, by New York Philharmonic conducted by André Kostelanetz

• 1984 - Crumb: A Haunted Landscape, by the New York Philharmonic, Arthur Weisberg conducting