Tower, Joan (1938–)

American composer. Name variations: Joan Peabody Tower. Born Sept 6, 1938, in La Rochelle, New York; father was amateur violinist and mining engineer; raised in South America; Bennington College, BA, 1967; Columbia University, PhD, 1967.

Among the most successful woman composers of all time, cofounded and performed as pianist in Da Capo Chamber Players (1969–84), which commissioned and introduced many of her most popular works, including Breakfast Rhythms I and II (1974–75) and Petroushskates (1980); taught at Bard College and served as composer-in-residence with Orchestra of St. Luke's and at Deer Park Valley Institute in Utah; created 1st orchestral work, Sequoia (1981), which led to appointment by Leonard Slatkin as composer-in-residence of St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (1985–88); wrote award-winning Silver Ladders for St. Louis Symphony (1986), which was later choreographed by Helgi Tomasson and performed by San Francisco Ballet (1998); created Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman (1987), commissioned by Houston Symphony Orchestra; commissioned to write fanfares No. 2 for Absolut Vodka (1989), No. 3 for Carnegie Hall's 100th anniversary (1991), No. 4 for 50th anniversary of Kansas City Symphony (1992) and No. 5 for Aspen Music Festival (1993); wrote many other celebrated works, such as Concerto for Violin (1991), solo piano piece for John Browning Vast Antique Cubes/Throbbing Still (2000), and string quartets Night Fields (1994) and In Memory, premiered by Tokyo String Quartet (2002); served as co-artistic director of Yale/Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and composer-in-residence at Tanglewood; featured in retrospective at Carnegie Hall, Making Music (2005). Inducted into American Academy of Arts and Letters (1998) and Academy of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University (2004).