Joan Tower facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Joan Tower
Tower (circa 2003)
Born	(1938-09-06) September 6, 1938 (age 86) New Rochelle, New York, U.S.

Joan Tower (born September 6, 1938) is a famous American composer, pianist, and conductor. She has won Grammy awards for her music. Many people call her one of the most successful women composers ever. Her music is known for being strong and full of energy. It has been played in concert halls all over the world.

One of her first big orchestral pieces was Sequoia (1981). It's like a musical picture of a giant tree, showing its parts from the trunk to the tiny needles. She has also written many other instrumental works. These include Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman, which is a nod to Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man. Other pieces are Island Prelude, five string quartets, and more musical tone poems. Joan Tower was also a founding member of the Da Capo Chamber Players. This group helped her create and perform many of her early works, like Petroushskates.

Joan Tower's Early Life and Career

Joan Tower was born in New Rochelle, New York, in 1938. When she was nine years old, her family moved to Bolivia. She says this experience made rhythm a very important part of her music. In Bolivia, she discovered her love for rhythm during local saint's day celebrations. She learned to play percussion and began her musical journey there.

For the next ten years, Joan's musical talent grew quickly, especially on the piano. Her father wanted her to have consistent music training. Her connection with her father, who studied minerals, can be seen in her "mineral works." These include pieces like Black Topaz (1976) and Silver Ladders (1986).

As a young woman, she returned to the United States to study music. She went to Bennington College and then Columbia University. At Columbia, she earned her doctorate in composition in 1968. She also loved jazz music and was a jazz pianist for ten years. This inspired her to use jazz chords in many of her compositions.

In 1969, Joan Tower helped start the Da Capo Chamber Players in New York. She played the piano for the group. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, she wrote many successful pieces for the Da Capo Players. These included Platinum Spirals (1976) and Wings (1981). The group won awards, like the Naumburg Award in 1973. Joan left the group in 1984 after her first orchestral piece, Sequoia (1981), became very popular.

Since 1972, Joan Tower has been a music professor at Bard College. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1976. From 1985 to 1988, she was the composer-in-residence for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. This means she worked closely with the orchestra to create new music.

Awards and Later Works

In 1990, Joan Tower became the first woman to win the Grawemeyer Award for Music. She won it for her piece Silver Ladders. In 1993, the Milwaukee Ballet asked her to compose Stepping Stones. She even conducted parts of it at the White House.

In the 1990s, she wrote the third Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman. She also composed several piano concertos, like Rapids (Piano Concerto no. 2) (1996), and Tambor (1998). Tambor was written for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. In 1999, she became the composer-in-residence with the Orchestra of St. Luke's. In 1998, she won the Alfred I. DuPont Award for Distinguished American Composer.

In 2002, Tower won the Annual Composer's Award from the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra. In 2004, the Nashville Symphony's recording of her works Tambor, Made in America, and her Concerto for Orchestra was nominated for a Grammy Award.

In 2005, Joan Tower became the first composer chosen for the "Ford Made in America" program. This special program allowed her 15-minute piece Made in America to be performed in every state in the U.S. between 2005 and 2007. In 2008, her piece Made in America and its recording by the Nashville Symphony won three Grammy Awards. These awards were for Best Orchestral Performance, Best Classical Album, and Best Classical Contemporary Composition.

Today, Joan Tower is the Asher B. Edelman Professor of Music at Bard College. She is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Joan Tower's Musical Style

Joan Tower's early music was influenced by her teachers at Columbia University. It followed a style called serialism, which often has a clear, simple sound. As she grew as a composer, she started to be inspired by other composers like Olivier Messiaen. Her music became more colorful and is often described as "impressionistic," meaning it creates a mood or feeling. She often writes music with specific musicians or groups in mind. This helps her use their strengths in her compositions.

One of her most famous works is the six-part Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman. Each part is dedicated to "women who are adventurous and take risks." This piece was inspired by Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man. Four of the six parts are written for trumpets, horns, trombones, tuba, and percussion. The first part was played in 1987. The fifth part was written for the Aspen Music Festival in 1993. The first five parts were added to the National Recording Registry in 2014.

Selected Works by Joan Tower

Ballet

• Stepping Stones (1993): This piece was created for the Milwaukee Ballet.

Orchestral Music

• Sequoia (1981): A musical picture of a giant tree, commissioned by the Jerome Foundation.
• Silver Ladders (1986): This piece won the Grawemeyer Award in 1990.
• Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman (1987–1992): A series of fanfares celebrating adventurous women.
• Tambor (1998): Commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony.
• Made in America (2004): This piece was performed by over 60 orchestras across the U.S. and won three Grammy Awards.

Chamber Music

• Petroushskates (1980): Written for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano.
• Island Prelude (1989): For oboe and string quartet or wind quintet.
• Night Fields (String Quartet No. 1) (1994): One of her string quartets.
• DNA (2005): For a group of five percussion instruments.
• Angels (String Quartet No. 4) (2008): Another string quartet.

Vocal Music

• Can I (2007): Written for a choir of young people and a percussionist.

Solo Music

• Wings (1981): For clarinet or alto saxophone.
• Wild Purple (1998): For viola.
• String Force (2010): For violin.

See also

In Spanish: Joan Tower para niños