A Beethoven of Our Time: Joan Tower

As classical music fans, we’re always on the look-out to hear the latest and greatest in classical music and we wish we had had the opportunity to meet and hear Beethoven or Mozart live and in their day. Well here’s your chance to hear a Beethoven of today: Joan Tower. Ms. Tower is important not only because she’s one of just a handful of female composers who are actively composing, but mainly because she’s been a constant innovator and voice for modern classical music over the last five decades. She’s received three Grammy Awards, countless commissions and composition awards, and was the first female to receive the Grawemeyer Award in Composition. She’s been the composer-in-residence at several of the best orchestras in the world. Utah Symphony has enjoyed a five-year association with Ms. Tower through her tenure as composer-in-residence at our Deer Valley® Music Festival. If you want to hear the best and the brightest in classical music today, come to Deer Valley Resort this Friday.

Utah Symphony will perform her orchestral work, Made in America. This 15-minute piece is truly an American work in every sense of the word: through a partnership program between the American Symphony Orchestra League and Meet The Composer, this pieces “toured” all 50 states and was featured on programs by some 65 orchestras during the 2005-07 seasons. Over a span of two seasons, this piece saw more performances in more states than the much heralded Police reunion tour! Read Joan Tower’s program notes here. Greg Sandow, a classical music icon himself, writes about this grand undertaking here.