Joan Tower is widely regarded as one of today’s most important American composers. Recognising her more than 60-year career and lasting contributions as composer, performer, and educator, Chamber Music America honoured her with its Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award in 2020, Musical America chose her to be its 2020 Composer of the Year, and in 2019 the League of American Orchestras awarded her its highest honor, the Gold Baton.
Tower, the first composer awarded a Ford Made in America commission, wrote Made in America for a consortium of 65 orchestras. Leonard Slatkin and the Nashville Symphony recorded it in 2006 (with Tambor and Concerto for Orchestra) on Naxos 8.559328. That recording collected three 2008 GRAMMY Awards, including Best Classical Composition for Made in America. In 1990 Tower became the first woman to win the prestigious Grawemeyer Award with Silver Ladders, written for the St. Louis Symphony as Composer-in-Residence.
Other residencies include the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and the Albany Symphony. She was co-founder and pianist for the Naumburg-winning Da Capo Chamber Players for 15 years. Major ensembles and soloists continue to commission her. Tower is Asher Edelman Professor of Music at Bard College, where she has taught since 1972.