Joan Tower

Island Prelude

Joan Tower is one of this generation's most dynamic and colourful composers. Her bold and energetic music, with its striking imagery and novel structural forms, has won large, enthusiastic audiences. Growing up in South America, she absorbed the wealth of native cultures and discovered a love of performing and composing.

This 'Island Prelude' is one of the rare wind quintets where one instrument us a soloist throughout, supported by the rest of the ensemble - in this case, the oboe. The complicated rhythmic nuances give the pieces the improvisatory feeling of a prelude. The varied colours of the instruments join and separate from the oboe throughout the work, providing an ever-changing background for its arabesques. The duration is approximately 10 minutes.