Week 8 - Piece of the Week 4 - Joan Tower, For the Uncommon Woman (No.4)
You will need to set up your Nkoda to access the parts, for information on how to do this please use the following link:
https://moodle.rncm.ac.uk/moodle/mod/page/view.php?id=56151
Joan Tower, For the Uncommon Woman (No.4)
(p)2222 / 4331 / T3P / str
https://www.nkoda.com/playlist?ref=d858ebbb-b5ed-4f28-b836-89cd8c42ade1
Who is Joan Tower?
A ten-minute interview with Tower, presented by the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, about her influences, some of her best known pieces, likes and dislikes:
Tower’s academic profile and biography:
https://www.bard.edu/faculty/details/?id=3066
Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman
Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman is a series of six short compositions of one 25-minnute composition, written between 1987 and 2016. All four fanfares are dedicated to women who are adventurous and take risks. In 2014, the series was added to the National Recording Registry, having been judged “culturally, historically, or aesthetically important.”
Originally called “Fourth Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman” and re-named “For the Uncommon Woman,” this was the first in the “Fanfare” set to use full orchestra. Dedicated to conductor JoAnn Falletta, the five-minute work was composed in 1992 and premiered in the same year by William McGlaughlin and the Kansas City Symphony, who had commissioned it with funding from AT&T. Not strictly a “Fanfare” due to its use of instruments other than brass and percussion, “For the Uncommon Woman” retains a fanfare’s splendor and sense of pageantry. Bright, dissonant, shimmering, propulsive, and big-hearted, the work contains many brass flourishes and percussive effects.
The RLPO were due to perform Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman No.1 (for Brass and Percussion ensemble) in a concert on 19 November 2020, unfortunately, this has had to be cancelled due to COVID-19. Hopefully RLPO will be able to perform this piece again soon, inspired by Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man and dedicated to Marin Alsop (this is also available on Nkoda).
Two Youtube recordings of the Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman no.4:
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Interlochen Arts Academy Symphony Orchestra, cond. Octavio Mas-Arocas
·
Contemporary Youth Orchestra, cond. Liza
Grossman