Happy Birthday to New Rochelle’'s Joan Tower

Joan Tower, born in New Rochelle, turns 78 on Tuesday.

Tower, a Grammy-winning contemporary American composer, concert pianist and conductor, was born Sept. 6, 1938.

Priased by The New Yorker magazine as "one of the most successful woman composers of all time," her compositions have been performed in concert halls around the world. After gaining recognition for her first orchestral composition, "Sequoia"(1981), a tone poem which structurally depicts a giant tree from trunk to needles, she has gone on to compose a variety of instrumental works including "Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman," (which is something of a response to Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man,") the "Island Prelude," two string quartets, and an assortment of other tone poems. Tower was pianist and founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning Da Capo Chamber Players, which commissioned and premiered many of her early works, including her widely-performed "Petroushskates."

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