Joan Tower - Work

Work

Tower's early music seems to reflect the influences of her mentors at Columbia University and is rooted in the serialist tradition, whose sparse texture complimented her interest in chamber music. As she developed as a composer Tower began to gravitate towards the work of Olivier Messiaen and George Crumb and broke away from the strict serialist model. Her work became more colorful and has often been described as impressionistic. She often composes with specific ensembles or soloists in mind, and aims to exploit the strengths of these performers in her composition.

Among her most notable work is Tower's five part Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman, each dedicated to 'women who are adventurous and take risks'. Inspired by Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man, the fanfares are scored for 3 trumpets, 4 horns, 3 trombones, tuba and percussion. The first fanfare was debuted in 1987 and conducted by Hans Vonk. For the second fanfare, which premiered in 1989, Tower added one percussion while the third, debuted in 1991 was scored for a double brass quintet, and the fourth was scored for a full orchestra. The fifth, and final, portion of Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman was commissioned for the Aspen Music Festival in 1993 and was written specifically for Joan Harris.

Read more about this topic:  Joan Tower

Famous quotes containing the word work:

    “You seem to have no real purpose in life and won’t realize at the age of twenty-two that for a man life means work, and hard work if you mean to succeed.”
    —Jennie Jerome Churchill (1854–1921)

    “To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as saying of some kind of food that it is very good but that most people can’t eat it.”
    —Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910)

    “By this contrivance the machinery of my work is of a species by itself; two contrary motions are introduced into it, and reconciled, which were thought to be at variance with each other. In a word, my work is digressive, and it is progressive too,—and at the same time.”
    —Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)