The Kotas Project

Joan Tower was born on September 6th, 1938 in New Rochelle New York. When she was nine Tower moved to Bolivia, a country in the heart of South Africa. This would influence her relationship with rhythm and cause it to be a major part of her composition process. Tower began her musical career as a pianist and attended Bennington College in Vermont. She later attended Columbia where she studied composition under Otto Luening, Jack Beeson, and Vladimir Ussachevsky. Tower eventually earned a Doctorate in composition in 1968.

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Tower continued to perform as well as compose and in 1969 she founded the Da-Capo Chamber Players alongside Joel Lester and Patricia Spencer. Some of Tower’s first compositions were written for Da-Capo and in 1973 they won the Naumberg Award. During this time tower also accepted a teaching position at Bard Conservatory and received a Guggenheim fellowship. In 1981 Tower released her first orchestral piece, Sequoia, with great success. Three years later she left Da-Capo to pursue composition. In 1988 Tower became the composer in residence for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra where she remained until 1991. While in St. Louis Tower became the first woman to win the Grawemeyer Award for Music for her composition Silver Ladders. Tower has been a composer in residence at many professional orchestras and festivals including the ORchestra of St. Luke’s, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Deer Valley Music Festival, and the Yale/Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. Tower is currently the Asher Edelman Professor of Music at Bard College.