Episode 11 - Mar 22, 2021

Jeff Counts catches up with composer Joan Tower to discuss her love for chamber music, her approach to mentoring young composers, and what new pieces she has in store.

Joan Tower’s Wings will be performed by clarinetist Erin Svoboda on our next concert, streaming for free beginning Friday, March 26. You can experience this and other concerts from NOVA Chamber Music series at novaslc.org.

Joan Tower | composer
Jeff Counts | host

produced by Chris Myers (argylearts.com)

Transcript

Narrator

Welcome to the NOVA Podcast

Jeff Counts

Welcome to the NOVA Podcast. My name is Jeff Counts. I’m your guest host for this episode. An episode in which I’m delighted to have a guest. The distinguished American composer Joan Tower is with us to talk about her music. Joan, welcome to the show.

Joan Tower

Thank you for having me.

Jeff Counts

It’s great to see you again. You and I have worked together in the past, back in the old Deer Valley Emerging Quartets and Composer days. It’s wonderful to see you again.

Joan Tower

That was a wonderful program. I loved that program.

Jeff Counts

You said to me in an email recently that you miss those days, and I really do, too.

Joan Tower

Yeah.

Jeff Counts

It’s good to talk to you today. One of your works, Wings for Solo Clarinet, is going to be on an upcoming NOVA concert. And I wanted to talk to you about writing for solo instruments. I know your work mainly as an orchestral composer, because that’s been my life as a programmer. But I know you’ve written a lot of solo instrumental works.

Joan Tower

Yes, indeed.

Jeff Counts

Can you talk a little bit about the difference between using large forces and then something so intimate and personal as Wings?

Joan Tower

Well, I happen to love writing for solo instruments. I’ve written about seven solo pieces, and my next one actually is going to be a bass solo. I just love getting into that one line. It’s sort of like trying to deal with one sketch with pencil. You can only change the color within the instrument, but you don’t have the larger color changes. And there’s a lot more control, I feel, over the piece. So that’s the big difference between that an orchestral writing. Because orchestral writing brings in so many other instruments, so many other colors, so many layers of counterpoint, of rhythm. It’s a completely different animal.

Jeff Counts

I find it interesting that you say you feel like you have more control when it’s a single instrument. Do you feel like that’s because an orchestral work takes on a life of its own at a certain point?

Joan Tower

No. It’s just that there are so many more options. Musical options with the orchestra. With a solo instrument, you really have to concentrate on this one line and make it work.

Jeff Counts

You have a long history with chamber music. I mean, people might know you as an orchestral composer predominantly, but you’ve been a chamber music performer for a long time. You’ve obviously been involved with programming chamber music concerts much like the NOVA Chamber Music Series. What is your long history with that part of the music world tell you about putting pieces together and making wonderful programs and how a piece like Wings fits into a larger goal for a program?

Joan Tower

Well, that’s really my home. Chamber music. Actually, much more than the orchestral world. I’ve been doing that for… I started my own chamber music group, the Da Capo Chamber Players, in 1972, and I was the pianist for them for fifteen years. So I got a real inside education on what it means to be a chamber player. And we focused on new music, so I got to know a lot of composers that way, too. It was the best education I ever could have. Better than my PhD that I got.

Jeff Counts

Have you done much programming of chamber music concerts recently? Has that been a part of your life at Bard or…?

Joan Tower

Yes! Actually, I continued to do that in different ways. I’ve done it in the past with lots of other organizations, like the St. Louis Symphony and the St. Luke’s Symphony, I did the chamber music programming for them of new pieces, and other organizations. But now I’m at Bard, mostly at home, loving it, and I’m working with an adult class of 65 people that are my age. And I present musical themes each Friday, and that keeps me busy doing research and finding the players and finding the program. I love it. It’s something I love to do, is put together programs of music.

Jeff Counts

That’s fascinating, this adult chamber music idea. Is it mostly contemporary music with those folks, or is it a mix…?

Joan Tower

Oh, no. Sorry. The audience is adults.

Jeff Counts

I see. Okay.

Joan Tower

So there are very good young players from conservatory who present themselves to this adult audience.

Jeff Counts

And is it a broad-based diet of music?

Joan Tower

Oh, yeah. I’m doing it all—piano, romantic, I’m doing a living composer one, I’m doing French music, I’m doing brass music. I’m doing all kinds of different things. And it’s a wonderful education for me to learn about all this music and to get to know the players. We have fantastic players here at Bard. So it’s great. And then I do a Music Alive program, which I run with Blair McMillen, and we do all contemporary music. And we do that twice a year. And that’s all contemporary music, and it’s great.

Jeff Counts

Speaking of contemporary music, let’s talk about Wings for a second. That’s the piece of yours that will be featured on this upcoming program. I know you wrote the piece in 1981. I know you wrote it for a dear friend, Laura Flax, and I do also know that she passed away after a long battle with cancer in 2017, and I’ve got a couple of questions for you about Laura and this piece. And I want to start broad, because I suspect that most of the solo instrument work you do is for a specific person. I doubt you just woke up and thought “I’m going to write a bass piece.” I’m sure someone is collaborating with you on that, and I’m sure it was the same in this work. So how much of the person’s personality and your relationship with them goes into the process, and how much is apparent in the final product?

Joan Tower

Well, with Laura, it was very personal, because she was in my group, and we’d played together. It’s a funny story here. She was a very smooth clarinetist. She could go from one tone to another like a panther. So I work hard on my titles. So I called her up. She was in San Francisco playing with the symphony. I said, “Oh, I’ve got a title for your piece. Panthers.”

And there’s this silence. And she says, “Joan, whatever. This is your piece.”

And then the piece started to fly upwards, and I said, well I can’t keep this as Panthers, because it’s starting to fly. So I said, I better get a bird. So I found the biggest birds, the falcons. I said, that’s a great title. So I called her up again. I said, “The piece started flying, so I had to get a big bird. Falcons.”

Silence.

“Joan, this is your piece. Your title.” And then I started thinking about that. That’s a really weird image. And I turned it into Wings. And I think Wings is really a good title. Because it is about flying, but it not sort of narrow, you know what I mean?

Jeff Counts

Absolutely. When I listen to the work, I think it’s interesting you went from Panther to the panther of the sky with Falcons, but ended up with Wings, but…

Joan Tower

Panther of the Sky! That would have been a great title! [laughs]

Jeff Counts

You can have it. You don’t even need to quote me on your works cited page.

Joan Tower

Unfortunately, it’s already done.

Jeff Counts

Well, I love the work, and I do think that it captures that quality of hers that you just described very quickly. Do you feel differently about the piece now, Joan, that she’s passed on? I mean, when you hear it now, what’s the experience like for you?

Joan Tower

That is probably my most-played piece. And I’m not sure exactly why, except that maybe clarinetists take to it… I’ve heard so many clarinetists play that piece. They just love it, and it means… I think the piece is working on some level for them?

Anthony McGill just played it here. He’s the principal of New York. And he talked about it. He said, “This piece challenges every inch of the clarinetist. The lyrical side. The punchy side. The dramatic side. Everything.” And I thought the way he articulated it was very refreshing and nourishing to me about why that piece is taking off so much.

[laughs]

“Taking off!”

Jeff Counts

Of course. You know, I agree with him, in that the challenges for the instrumentalist are very apparent when you listen to a recording of that piece, and I feel like you do explore the entire instrument. Is that a goal of yours when you write these solo pieces?

Joan Tower

Yes!

Jeff Counts

Do you try to really stretch the player?

Joan Tower

Yes, yes. But… okay, I just wrote a solo viola piece for Paul Neubauer. And it’s a virtuosic piece. I do feel I do want to write something for challenging. But I’m not always sure of the limit of the player. Like the viola’s not an instrument I’ve been around that much. The clarinet I’ve been around a lot. And so, Paul, who’s an extraordinary player, played it and it was great, and the violists started… it started getting picked up like crazy, because they don’t have a lot of solo repertoire, actually. And this was a challenging piece, but there’s one page that’s almost impossible. And it’s because Paul didn’t tell me this page is almost impossible. [laughs] I didn’t know any better! I said okay! I’m not a violist. I’m not a violinist, either. So, it’s the challenge is… It depends on how much you want to challenge and how much you actually know about the instrument. You have to be careful.

Jeff Counts

I’m sure you’ve come to this place where working with artists and understanding the limits and knowing where you can push and pull… I’m sure you’ve come to that place through experience. You’ve been working for awhile now. And I’m hearkening back to our days at Deer Valley together, when I got to see you teach on a regular basis. I saw you work, not only with the composers who were part of the program there, but we invited composition classes in from BYU and the University of Utah and other places, and you did masterclasses with them. And it was always amazing for me to watch you do this… Mostly because of how honest, how immediately honest with the students you were about what you were hearing. And I don’t mean that you were cruel. You were not cruel. You were very, very careful with what you said. But you gave them instant and very useful feedback. And I watched them respond to that in a way that was amazing for me. So talk about your teaching and when working with composers and the kinds of things that you’ve learned that you think every composer needs to know.

Joan Tower

Well, thank you for saying that, because I’ve been doing that a long time. And when I walk into a school and I have to deal with an audience of whatever, 300 people, and there’s this young kid who’s showing me their second piece, and I don’t know them. I don’t know how vulnerable they are. I don’t know how tough they are. I don’t know any of that. It’s a very thin ice that I’m skating on. And I just have to play it by ear and see if I can go to them with some directness that’s not going to hurt them. It’s a very challenging… that’s the most challenging thing about any residency I do.

Jeff Counts

Sure.

Joan Tower

It’s hard. And I’m not always right. I tell them that. I’m not an authority. I just have my own perspective. And they have to know that: that I’m just another person with another perspective. But they tend to look at me as, “Oh, this is a very important composer coming in. Very experienced, et cetera, et cetera.” I have to get that down and try to relate to them just as human to human. It’s not easy. It’s not easy.

Jeff Counts

I think that human to human connection is very apparent when you work. And it doesn’t actually seem like work when you do it. You seem to actually enjoy working with these young composers. And I watched you make progress with some of them in this space of twenty minutes, which was really quite something. It’s a… I sound like I’m complimenting you, but I mean it.

Joan Tower

Well, thank you. Thank you for saying that, because I know that just to come in and be smooth and easy and comfortable is not necessarily going to help them. I know I want to help them without hurting them. But it’s not easy. It’s a very thin ice there.

Jeff Counts

Yeah. Well, this has been amazing conversation. I know people are going to be even more interested to listen to Wings with new ears after hearing you speak. Before I let you go, I wanted to ask you: is there anything you’re working on right now that you can give a sneak peak to the NOVA audience about? What’s on your plate right now? What’s happening in your composing world.

Joan Tower

Well, yesterday, I just finished a cello concerto for Alisa Weilerstein

Jeff Counts

Oh, wonderful.

Joan Tower

And she’s amazing. And it was all put together by Peter Oundjian, who’s a conductor. It’s about 23 minutes. And I had a lot of fun writing it. But there’s always this anxiety. You’re writing for a person or persons. In this case, a person. And a conductor, too. And you sort of pray that you work on this blueprint.

It’s like an architectural blueprint. There’s nothing like musical notation that is so specific. You’re putting your soul into this detailed blueprint, and you’re hoping it comes out on the other side the way you want it to come out in reality. You know, so as an architect, I think we’re closer to architectural blueprints than anything. But we have the time element.

And then the building goes up, and you go see it. The building’s up, right? You spent a year on the blueprints of this thing. And oh my God. That pink! That doesn’t work at all! Or those windows are way too high!

But see, as a composer, the reality is not like you’re working with a contractor. It’s the notation gives you the ability for them to rehearse it in two hours, four hours, six hours, and then it goes up. The building goes up. The timing is very different. And it’s very scary. But the first transition is giving the score to the player. So yesterday, Alisa called me, and she said, “I love this piece.” I said, okay. Ah! Wall number one has been passed!

Jeff Counts

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Joan, I feel like you put your soul into everything you do. It’s why people love your music so much. You are an absolute American treasure. And not only that, one of the most genuine people in the business. You and I haven’t spoken in years, but I felt like I talked to you yesterday.

Joan Tower

Oh, that’s sweet.

Jeff Counts

And this has been a real joy. Thank you for doing what you do. And thank you for joining us today on the NOVA Podcast. It’s been a real treat.

Joan Tower

Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Narrator

Joan Tower's Wings will be featured on the next concert in NOVA's season, available beginning Friday, March 26 at novaslc.org.

The NOVA Podcast is made possible by the support of our donors and season sponsors. NOVA has received generous support from the Utah Legislature, the Utah Division of Arts and Museums, the Lawrence T. and Janet T. Dee Foundation, Salt Lake County Zoo Arts & Parks, the George S. and Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation, Izotope, Salt Lake City Arts Council, Cultural Vision Fund, Dominion Energy, Rocky Mountain Power Foundation, the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, and the Aaron Copland Fund for Music.

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