Letting the Fresh Air In

Last weekend, the Bard College Conservatory of Music celebrated the 75th birthday of renowned American composer Joan Tower with a gala concert. Just days shy of her birthday, Tower sounded as feisty, buoyant and vivid as someone half her age — exactly the way her music sounds. Hardly like the “dinosaur” she described herself as. Tower’s resume and accolades are well known in the music world: trailblazer, Grammy-winner, high priestess of a certain “neo-romantic” style of contemporary classical music, to use her words again. She enjoys the security of a named teaching position at Bard and all its perks, including a place for performances of her work. Looking back on more than a half century of music making, Tower says her first orchestral piece, “Sequoia,” was the turning point of her career. “The conductor Leonard Slatkin became interested in my work and invited me to be composer-in-residence with the St. Louis Symphony” (which Slatkin led at the time). On tour with that orchestra, Slatkin “took that piece and others of mine around the U.S. and around the world.” Tower’s work can be best approached on her 2008 Grammy-winning album, “Made in America,” with Slatkin conducting the Nashville Symphony. The recording includes the title piece, plus “Tambour” and the two-part “Concerto for Orchestra.” Tower paints with a broad orchestral palette that features liberal use of percussion (a tambour is a drum.) Narrative arc, propulsive rhythmic energy and a mostly tonal harmony with occasional dissonances are consistent features. Tower is not afraid to reference other composers. “Concerto for Orchestra” opens with a passage reminiscent of Bartok’s classic of the same name, as well as a percussion riff similar to that in Aaron Copland’s well-known “Fanfare for the Common Man.” “Made in America” uses “America the Beautiful” as a thematic element. Tower’s role as a pioneering female composer in a male-dominated profession is marked in such compositions as “Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman” (the title being a pointed commentary on Copland’s). “I’m proud of the fact that I’ve made some inroads there and kind of broken a glass ceiling, but in the classical music world we still have a long way to go,” she says. “Not only with women composers, but also living composers. Orchestras have to rethink what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. You can’t go on being a museum. You have to let some fresh air in.” Tower also enjoys composing for smaller ensembles. “Writing for string quartet has been a terrific highlight in my life; I have written for the Emerson, Tokyo, Muir and Daedalus. It’s a fantastic world for composers. “I think composing is a very torturous, challenging activity,” she continues. “It’s not for the faint of heart, and it requires a lot of patience and resourcefulness.” A skilled pianist, Tower was a founding member in 1970 of the Da Capo Chamber Players, a group dedicated to new music that is now in permanent residence at the Bard Conservatory. Tower also advises young composers to “do their own things on the sidelines” and consider flexible arrangements, such as teaching or finding small performance spots to work with. “The more resourceful composers are the ones who establish their own groups, like I did, so they’re not dependent on others” for their pieces to be heard. Tower hasn’t thought much about her legacy, she says. “I just hope that I have some kind of voice that speaks to people.” And for her next 25 years? “I hope that I can continue writing, the music keeps getting played, and that I get paid for it.”