Joan Tower, widely regarded as one of the most important American composers living today, will spend this week at the IU Jacobs School of Music, offering a lecture Wednesday April 17, group lessons to composition students and will be the featured composer in the New Music Ensemble concert, Friday April 19.
The residency is part of the Five Friends Master Class Series and honors Robert Samels.
“The offering of the Five Friends Master Classes Series for Jacobs School of Music Students makes me so happy,” said Clayton Samels, father of Robert Samels. “I know that Robert would be happy, too. What a great way to honor these friends. What a wonderful opportunity for Jacobs School of Music students.”
“Having Joan Tower with us offers our students an exceptional opportunity to connect with one of the most influential composers alive today,” said Don Freund, chair of the composition department for the spring semester and artistic director of the New Music Ensemble concert. “Her breadth of knowledge of the field is impressive and we especially look forward to showcasing her inspiring compositions at the concert.”
Events during the residency open to the school and public:
Wednesday, April 17 at 4:00 p.m.
Guest Lecture in Ford-Crawford Hall
Friday, April 19 at 8:00 p.m.
News Music Ensemble Concert
Tower: Angels (String Quartet No. 4)
Tower: Copperwave (Brass Quintet)
Tower: Ivory and Ebony (Piano Solo)
Podgursky: As A Spell, Against Falling Objects
(Dean’s Prize Commission, Premiere)
Britten: Sinfonietta, Op. 1
Joan Tower
During a career spanning more than fifty years, Joan Tower has made lasting contributions to musical life in the United States as composer, performer, conductor, and educator. Her works have been commissioned by major ensembles, soloists, and orchestras, including the Emerson, Tokyo, and Muir quartets; soloists Evelyn Glennie, Carol Wincenc, David Shifrin, and John Browning; and the orchestras of Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Washington DC among others. Tower was the first composer chosen for a Ford Made in America consortium commission of sixty-five orchestras. Leonard Slatkin and the Nashville Symphony recorded Made in America in 2008 (along with Tambor and Concerto for Orchestra). The album collected three Grammy awards: Best Classical Contemporary Composition, Best Classical Album, and Best Orchestral Performance. In 1990 she became the first woman to win the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Silver Ladders, a piece she wrote for the St. Louis Symphony where she was Composer-in-Residence from 1985-88. Other residencies with orchestras include a 10-year residency with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s (1997-2007) and the Pittsburgh Symphony (2010-2011). Tower studied piano and composition at Bennington College and Columbia University. Her earliest works were serial in concept, but her music soon developed the lyricism, rhythmic drive, and colorful orchestration that characterize her subsequent works. She co-founded the Da Capo Chamber Players in 1969 as pianist — its accolades included the 1973 Naumburg Chamber Music Award — but also wrote several well-received pieces for the ensemble. She is currently Asher Edelman Professor of Music at Bard College, where she has taught since 1972. Her music is published by Associated Music Publishers.
Robert Samels
Robert Samels taught as an AI in the Jacobs School of Music Department of Music Theory. He was in charge of T231 (a sophomore aural skills course) and was loved and admired by his students. As a bass-baritone Samels appeared as Mr. Gibbs in the world-premiere of Our Town by Ned Rorem, as Marco in the collegiate premiere of William Bolcom’s A View from the Bridge, as well as Joseph and Herod in the collegiate premiere of El Niño by John Adams. In the spring of 2005, he was selected as a semi-finalist in the annual competition of the Oratorio Society of New York and, in September of that year, he conducted the premiere of his own opera Pilatvs. Samels began his vocal studies with Alfred Anderson at the University of Akron and Andreas Poulimenos at Bowling Green State University. He was a doctoral student in choral conducting at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and studied voice with Giorgio Tozzi and Costanza Cuccaro.