Interview by Kyle Macmillan
Veteran American composer Joan Tower and the Colorado Music Festival are becoming quite the pair.
In 2021, in what is a rare event for a living composer, the summer Festival presented a program totally devoted to her music, including the world premiere of her cello concerto, A New Day, with Alisa Weilerstein as soloist. And, it is set to present another new work by her – a saxophone concerto titled Love Returns – during a set of concerts July 10 and 11 featuring Steven Banks as soloist.
Peter Oundjian Champions Tower’s Vision
A big reason for this continuing spotlight on Tower has been Peter Oundjian, the Festival’s music director since 2019, a longtime admirer who believes the Grammy Award winner is one of the most important composers this country has produced.
“I admire the fact,” he said, “that she, along with two other American composers, [John] Corigliano and [John] Adams, were kind of fearless in their conviction to keep a relationship with tonality through the ‘60s and ‘70s when it was very unacceptable.”
A Humble Master with Decades of Impact
Tower, who will turn 87 in September, is now regarded as an old master in the field, but she feels like a beginner. “I think being a composer is extremely humbling,” she said. “You can never assume that what you are doing is right. Once you start assuming that everything is right, you are in trouble. And as you get older, I think it gets more challenging in a way.”
But the fact that her music continues to be played regularly, especially her Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman, a series of six short compositions with different instrumentations that she wrote separately from 1986 through 2016, gives her considerable confidence.
Love, Loss, and Musical Renewal
“Some of them are getting picked up,” she said of her dozens of works. “Some of them die and are never played. Others are played now and then. It’s an interesting history.”
Meanwhile, the composer remains as active as ever. In addition to her new saxophone concerto, she recently finished a work for the Cassatt Quartet, which will debut it in September at the Maverick Chamber Music Festival in Woodstock, N.Y.
“Knock on wood,” Tower said, “I seem to be writing more than usual these days. My husband of 50 years passed away [in 2022], and music became more of a haven for me. I missed him too much, so I delved into more music.”
And, in fact, the saxophone concerto is one of three recent works she has written in memory of her husband, William (Jeff) Litfin. The 24-minute composition is a set of six variations on one of the earlier tributes, a two-minute solo piano piece titled Love Letter.
In writing this concerto, she noticed that each of the sections ends with soft rising chords, and this returning motif made her think of the ups and downs of a long-term relationship and the constant return to the love that sustains it.
Exploring the Power and Flexibility of the Saxophone
Tower has really gotten to know the saxophone in recent years. Since arranging her solo clarinet work, Wings, for alto saxophone in 1991, she created a sequel titled Second Flight (2017), which was premiered by 50 saxophonists around the world through the World-Wide Concurrent Premieres and Commissioning Fund. In addition, she served as a juror for the 2022 Naumburg Saxophone Competition.
The composer describes the saxophone as being quite different from the clarinet, one of her favorite instruments. “It has a power that is incredible,” she said. “It’s a powerhouse instrument. It can’t play as softly as the clarinet can. It can’t do those silky, pianissimo things. But it’s very fast. It’s very flexible. It can move. It can sing, and it has a big range.”
The Composer-Performer Collaboration Behind Love Returns
Because of these connections to the instrument, Oundjian knew the saxophone was very much on Tower’s mind, so he thought a saxophone concerto would be an ideal follow-up to the Festival’s earlier commission by her. The composer readily agreed to the idea.
For the soloist, Oundjian proposed Steven Banks, a 2022 winner of a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. He performed at the Festival in 2021 and more recently premiered and toured a saxophone concerto by Billy Childs that explores aspects of the African-American experience. “Steven is truly extraordinary in every way, and I had a feeling they might get along really well,” Oundjian said of him and Tower.
The two collaborated closely on this new piece, with Tower asking him to record himself playing a few passages from it as she was writing it so she could hear how they fit the instrument. Once the work was essentially completed, they spent several days together at her Hudson Valley home going over a reduced version for saxophone and piano.
“We even played together some, which was a total thrill,” Banks said via email. “Then, she made final changes and orchestrated the piece that you will all hear this summer.”
A Concerto That Elevates the Saxophone
Banks had just two requests for Tower as she began her work. While some concertos call on soloists to perform all four types of saxophones, he wanted this one to be written for just one, and Tower chose the alto. In addition, he wants to establish the instrument as an integral part of 21st-century classical music and didn’t want it to sound like a jazz piece.
“I do believe that the piece highlights the beauty of the saxophone,” Banks said, “while also taking advantage of its power and range. The musical language is specific to Joan, but there are moments of powerful, well-employed simplicity that may surprise fans of her work in the best way.”
Don’t Miss the World Premiere of Love Returns
Tower was delighted that when the Colorado Music Festival premiered her cello concerto, Oundjian, who enjoys collaborating with composers, took advantage of the series’ more elastic schedule to find extra time for rehearsal, so that he could make suggestions and she could make last-minute revisions on site.
Tower plans to do the same thing for the saxophone concerto. She is even bringing along her copyist, so that any changes can be quickly inserted into the musical parts for all the members of the festival orchestra.
“I’m so happy the premiere is going to be in Colorado,” she said, “because of this flexibility and the ability to be able to work together.”
The Colorado Music Festival and Steven Banks perform Joan Tower’s world premiere commissioned “Love Returns” on Thursday, July 10 and Friday, July 11.
