On Thursday 19 November the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra will perform works by John Adams, Schumann and the New York-based composer Joan Tower. Timmy Fisher takes a closer look at Tower’s life and music, and asks why she has been neglected in the UK in contrast to some of her American contemporaries
Joan Tower is not a name you hear very often this side of the pond. The New York-based composer’s music has featured just once at the BBC Proms – her Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman No. 1, conducted by its dedicatee, Marin Alsop, in 2012. A smattering of broadsheet reviews acknowledge Tower’s status as a ‘senior figure’ in the contemporary American scene but rarely do they unpack why that might be.
You could start by pointing to the stack of prizes and accolades she has earned over her 50-year career: a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Grawemeyer Award (of which she is the first female winner), multiple GRAMMYs, membership of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. These are just a few.
Then there are the various posts she has held, such as Composer in Residence at both the Orchestra of St Luke’s and the St Louis Symphony Orchestra, or her 48-year (and counting) tenure as Professor of Music at New York’s Bard College.
It’s an impressive CV. But, in her own words, ‘the important rewards are that your music gets picked up and played a lot. That’s what makes your life in music, not where you went to school, who you studied with or what awards you got.’
By this measure she has proven just as successful. Despite a paucity of performances in the UK, her music is frequently programmed across the Atlantic. The symphonic poem Made in America (2004), for example, has been performed by more than 65 orchestras across all 50 states. (A 2007 recording by the Nashville Symphony under Leonard Slatkin also picked up three GRAMMYs.)