Carnegie Hall

The Harlem Chamber Players are an ethnically diverse collective of professional musicians dedicated to bringing high-caliber, affordable, accessible live music to people in the Harlem community and beyond. Founded in 2008, The Harlem Chamber Players annually present a rich season of formal live concerts, indoors, outdoors, and online. The ensemble also promotes arts inclusion and equal access to the arts, bringing live music to underserved communities and promoting shared community arts and cultural engagement. The group was first inspired by the late Janet Wolfe, a long-time patron of minority musicians and founder of the NYC Housing Symphony Orchestra. The Harlem Chamber Players have presented culturally relevant programs at numerous venues throughout the city and collaborated with many other arts organizations. The Harlem Chamber Players are also artists-in-residence at the Harlem School of the Arts.

The Harlem Chamber Players have been featured on national radio on WQXR and at The Greene Space at WQXR and WNYC. The group has also been mentioned in articles in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Musical America, and on NPR, NBC, and Here and Now on ABC. The Harlem Chamber Players were awarded the 2022 Sam Miller Award for the Performing Arts.

Tania León is highly regarded as a composer and conductor, and for her accomplishments as an educator and advisor to arts organizations. Her orchestral work Stride, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, was awarded the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Music. In 2022, Ms. León was named a recipient of the 45th Annual Kennedy Center Honors. The following year, she was awarded the Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Music Composition from Northwestern University. Most recently, Ms. León became the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s composer-in-residence—a two-year post that began in September. She also holds Carnegie Hall’s Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair for the 2023–2024 season. She has been awarded the XIX Premio SGAE de la Música Iberoamericana Tomás Luis de Victoria 2023, becoming the first woman to be honored with Spain’s highest composition prize. In 2024, she earned the Distinguished Artist Award from the International Society for the Performing Arts.

In addition to composing, Ms. León is a founding member and first music director of Dance Theatre of Harlem, a founder of the Brooklyn Philharmonic’s Community Concert Series, a co-founder of the American Composers Orchestra’s Sonidos de las Américas festivals, a new music advisor to the New York Philharmonic, and a founder and artistic director of Composers Now. In 2023, Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library acquired Ms. León’s archive.

Terrance McKnight is a radio host, commentator, curator, writer, pianist, storyteller, and actor. In every engagement, it is his commitment to classical music and community building, in combination with his humanity and respect for his subject matter, that audiences find riveting and memory-making. He is the weekday evening host for WQXR Radio in New York, which aired Every Voice, his 2023 podcast series that investigated representations of Blackness in opera. In February 2024, Handel: Made in America, which he co-created and performed in, received its world premiere at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Upcoming is his book, Concert Black for Abrams Press, which explores the lives of classical artists of color in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Prior audio documentaries he authored, voiced, and produced for the station featured Langston Hughes, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Hazel Scott, Florence Price, Leonard Bernstein, and Harry Belafonte. Another series, All Ears with Terrance McKnight, received an ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award. Langston & Beethoven: Black & Proud—the live show he created and performs in, combining the poetry of Langston Hughes, traditional and contemporary chamber music works, and storytelling reflective of his upbringing and current events—has toured and been presented at Lincoln Center’s Sidewalk Studio. He has hosted concerts for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, and New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts; gave a keynote address at the 2022 Music Teachers National Association Conference; and participated in the Bang on a Can Summer Festival journalism symposium in 2022 and 2023. In association with the 2019 exhibition Charles White: A Retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art, Mr. McKnight curated a series of concerts and audio tours.

Mr. McKnight is a member of the artistic council for the Hermitage Artist Retreat, serves on the board of MacDowell, and is the artistic advisor to The Harlem Chamber Players.

Josh Henderson enjoys a multi-faceted career as a cross-genre violinist, violist, and composer. As a classical soloist, he has performed with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, China Broadcasting Performing Arts Troupe, Starling Chamber Orchestra, Accent X Festival Orchestra, Colour of Music Festival Orchestra, Bard Conductors Festival Orchestra, Colour of Music Virtuosi, Palaver Strings, Urban Playground Chamber Orchestra, The Harlem Chamber Players, Contemporaneous, New-Gen Orchestra of Curaçao, Ensemble du Monde, and the CCM Showcase Orchestra. He has performed in venues that include Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, and the Forbidden City Concert Hall of Beijing.

Carving out a reputation in jazz, rock, hip-hop, and country-fiddle, he has served as music director for the Emmy Award–winning Damien Escobar and performed at the 2013 Hip-Hop Inaugural Ball honoring Barack Obama, hosted by Russell Simmons. A sought-after freelance musician in New York City, Mr. Henderson has performed, recorded, and collaborated with popular artists who include Laufey, Henry Threadgill, Michael Bublé, Bilal, Solange Knowles, The Sugarhill Gang, David Byrne, Sufjan Stevens, Courtney Love, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Palmer, Paul McCartney, Mirah, Aminé, Angel Olsen, Jherek Bischoff, and members of the bands Beirut, Deerhoof, Blue Öyster Cult, and The Eagles.

As a composer, he has written for films and had several chamber works performed, including a Carnegie Hall premiere of his A Bird Fell Today by Duo Anova. Larger works include a full-length ballet for Caliince Dance Company, Marie: Embroidering Survival, which premiered at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 2012; a Viola Concerto; and the co-written Triple Concerto for Warp Trio and Urban Playground Chamber Orchestra. Mr. Henderson was named the winner of the 2022 Tribeca New Music National Composers Competition for his piece Veni: A Dystopian Cowgirl Fantasy for violin and fixed electronics. He recently released One More Night, his debut album featuring an evening-length composition for nonet, under Innova Recordings. A founding member of the cross-genre ensemble Warp Trio, Mr. Henderson has led the group on hundreds of concerts and university residencies throughout the US, as well as on international tours.

Mr. Henderson studied at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music with Kurt Sassmannshaus, and at New York University with Naoko Tanaka. He was on the faculty at the University of Iowa (Grant Woods Visiting Professor) and currently teaches at NYU and the Longy School of Music in Cambridge.

Leyland Simmons was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska. He began his formal dance training with Barbara Devereaux of the Royal Academy School of Dance in Anchorage and the Anchorage Classical Ballet Academy. He later studied at Interlochen Arts Academy, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Miami City Ballet, School of American Ballet, Jamel Gaines Creative Outlet, The Ailey School, and Ballet Divertimento in Montreal, Canada. Mr. Simmons is a graduate of the Professional Performing Arts High School in New York City and a former member of Ailey II and Complexions Contemporary Ballet. He has also performed with the New York City Ballet, Peridance Ensemble, Forces of Nature Dance Theatre, Nathan Trice / Rituals, George Faison, and BalletX. Mr. Simmons has performed at Jacob’s Pillow, the Cincinnati Ballet, International Ballet Competition in Moscow, and International Ballet Festival of Miami. Mr. Simmons is also a sought-after teacher, having taught at notable institutions like the Dance Theatre of Harlem, Steps on Broadway, and The Ailey School. He has appeared in numerous film, television, and print projects, including the History Channel’s Honor Deferred, Conan, YRB Magazine, Law & Order, Starbucks’s (RED) campaign, Puma, Sansha, The Berliner, and BroadwayWorld.

Mr. Simmons is an accomplished choreographer and educator with a passion for promoting diversity and inclusion in the arts. His choreography has been showcased at prestigious venues that include SummerStage in Central Park, Bryant Park, The Apollo Theater, and the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage.

Mr. Simmons is a member of the School of American Ballet’s alumni advisory committee on diversity and inclusion. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in dance education from NYU. Mr. Simmons has taught at NYU Steinhardt Summer intensive and has worked as an adjunct instructor at NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

Mr. Simmons’s commitment to arts education led him to become the resident choreographer at the Harlem School of the Arts in 2017, eventually taking on the role of chair of dance in 2020. In 2024, he was appointed as the artistic director of Harlem School of the Arts, where he continues to inspire and mentor the next generation of artists.