The Pulitzer jury described the 15-minute piece as a “musical journey full of surprise, with powerful brass and rhythmic motifs that incorporate Black music traditions from the U.S.
The music was born out of Project 19, an ambitious commissioning program where 19 women composers were chosen to write music to mark the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.
Reached by telephone Friday afternoon at her home in Nyack, N.Y., León said she was the first musician in her poor Havana family.
When I am going to write something that has that kind of a theme or that kind of focus, that’s what I do.
And those are the women that, when everybody is saying we are defeated, they say, “No, we’re not.” And that is actually what gave me the strength to write something in her honor – the honor of the many symbolizes women all over the world, in a way.
For example, there are instances where I used the trumpet and the brass with the plunger, and that actually reminded me of Louis Armstrong.
By that act of walking, you see, all of a sudden was a moment where, without thinking about it, I put it into the piece.
At the end of the piece, there is a symbology that has to do with my interpretation of fractions of an African clave from the West Coast of Africa, of the region that used to be the Belgian Congo, that nowadays is Nigeria.
I mean, if you actually inject yourself with energy, you are striding, you see? You are unstoppable in a way.
In a way, it was her journey, it is my journey.