Press Release

February 20, 2024

For Immediate Release

Feb 25: Da Capo Chamber Players celebrates Joan Tower at 85

Performance at Tenri Cultural Institute honors one of the ensemble's founders

Concert is part of Da Capo's 52nd concert season which continues on May 19 with a program of music inspired by the Middle East

The Da Capo Chamber Players honors composer Joan Tower at age 85 with a program spanning five decades of her chamber works. In addition to Tower’s music, the concert includes world premieres of works written by two of Tower’s associates, John Boggs and Erica Lindsay.

Tower (born September 6, 1938) was a founding member of the groundbreaking ensemble, served as its pianist from 1970 to 1985, and continues to have a close association with Da Capo. "Joan’s inspiration not only helped launch this amazing group, she has also written numerous major works for us which have become classics in the field,” said Patricia Spencer, curator of this concert and founding member of Da Capo.

Da Capo Chamber Players commissioned Erica Lindsay, recent winner of a Chamber Music America New Jazz Works award and a colleague of Tower’s at Bard College, to compose a new work for the occasion. Also receiving a premiere on this concert is a quintet written for Tower and Da Capo by John Boggs, former student of the composer, now a teacher of piano and voice in Colorado.

Da Capo Chamber Players concert, Joan Tower at 85!, is on Sunday, February 25 at 8 pm at Tenri Cultural Institute (43A West 13th Street in Manhattan). Tickets are $30 ($15 students/seniors), available online and at the door.

Da Capo's 52nd concert season continues on May 19 with a program of music inspired by the Middle East. Ugandan composer Shirish Korde's The Conference of the Birds 2 is based on medieval Persian mythology. Yotam Haber grew up in Israel, Netherlands, and the U.S. His composition Bloodsnow captures a harrowing experience where he nearly lost his finger taking care of a friend's sled dogs in Alaska. Iranian composer Ramin Heydarbeygi's Aramesh deals with the theme of exile.

Photos (top to bottom): Joan Tower, Da Capo Chamber Players, and (from left to right) Joan Tower, John Boggs, Erica Lindsay

Sunday, February 25, 2024 at 8 pm

Tenri Cultural Institute

(43A West 13th Street, New York, NY)

Joan Tower at 85!

Da Capo Chamber Players

Curtis Macomber violin | Chris Gross cello

Marianne Gythfeldt clarinet | Steven Beck piano

Patricia Spencer curator 

GUEST ARTISTS

James Baker conductor 

Laura Cocks flute | Michael Lipsey percussion

Andrea Ábel flute | Isabel Lepanto Gleicher flute

Jessica Taskov flute | Mark Helias upright bass

Tickets are $30/$15 (students/seniors),

available online or at the door

PROGRAM

Joan Tower Breakfast Rhythms I and II (1974)  

Joan Tower Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman No.5 (1993)  

Joan Tower Big Sky (2000)  

Joan Tower Into the Night (2022)

Erica Lindsay slowly, letting go (2024)* – World Premiere

Erica Lindsay Transmutation Variations 

John Boggs Descending the Catskills (2019)* – NY Premiere

*written for Joan Tower and Da Capo

Next up from Da Capo Chamber Players:

Sunday, May 19, 8 pm | Tenri Cultural Institute

Middle East Influences

A program of music by Shirish Korde, Yotam Haber, and Ramin Heydarbeygi.

The Da Capo Chamber Players has been hailed by The New Yorker as a "distinguished ensemble...at the center of the New York new-music scene”. Founded in 1970, the "Pierrot ensemble” (flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano) won the Naumburg Chamber Music Award in 1973 and went on to commission and perform new American chamber music in an enormous spectrum of styles over more than a half century.

The Da Capo Chamber Players' long-running New York series has been praised for "superb" and "gripping" performances, including premieres by Elliott Carter, George Perle, Louis Karchin, Joan Tower, Shulamit Ran, Chinary Ung, and dozens of others. Da Capo also brings performances of American music around the world, and presents music of global cultures to American audiences. 

Joan Tower was co-founder and pianist for the Da Capo Chamber Players from 1970-85, and is widely regarded as one of the most important American composers living today. During a career spanning more than sixty years, she has made lasting contributions to musical life in the United States as composer, performer, conductor, and educator. Her works have been commissioned by over one hundred major ensembles, soloists, and orchestras around the globe.

Tower was the first woman to win the prestigious Grawemeyer Award; she was named Composer of the Year by Musical America, and the League of American Orchestras awarded her the Gold Baton. The recording of Tower’s Made in America, a work commissioned by 65 American orchestras, earned the composer three Grammy awards. 

Since its founding, the Da Capo Chamber Players has received funding from the New York State Council on the Arts. It also receives public funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. 

The group also receives private funding from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, Amphion Foundation, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Zethus Fund, and generous individuals.