FLATBUSH — Thanks to the generosity of the Tow Foundation, more specifically Leonard Tow, who graduated from Brooklyn College in 1950, the School of Visual, Media and Performing Arts will enjoy a new chair. 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.

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.