Tower's musical "islands"

Synopsis

Music Played in Today's Program

Joan Tower (b. 1938) Island Rhythms Louisville Orchestra; Lawrence Leighton Smith, cond. Louisville 6

Joan Tower (b. 1938) Island Prelude Peter Bowman, oboe; Saint Louis Symphony; Leonard Slatkin, cond. Nonesuch 79245

On This Day

Births

• 1908 - American composer Leroy Anderson, in Cambridge, Massachusetts;

• 1910 - American songwriter and musical composer Frank Loesser, in New York City;

• 1911 - American composer and conductor Bernard Herrmann, in New York City;

• 1914 - Czech-born Swiss conductor and composer, Rafael Kubelik, in Bychiory, near Kolin;

• 1924 - American composer Ezra Laderman, in Brooklyn, New York;

Deaths

• 1744 - French composer André Campra, c. 83, at Versailles;

• 1941 - Polish pianist and composer Ignace Jan Paderewski , age 80, in New York City; Buried at Arlington National Cemetary in Virginia (pending the liberation of Poland during WWII) by order of President Roosevelt; He was reburied with honors in Warsaw on June 30, 1992.

Premieres

• 1888 - Wagner: "Die Feen" (The Fairies), in Munich at the Hoftheater; Wagner composed this opera in 1834;

• 1889 - Glazunov: Symphony No. 2, in Paris;

• 1951 - Leroy Anderson: "Plink, Plank, Plunk!" and "Fiddle-Faddle" at a Decca recording session in New York City, with the composer conducting; (See also June 28);

• 1962 - first modern professional staging of Moneteverdi’s opera "L’Incoronazione di Poppea" (The Coronation of Poppea) at the Glyndebourne Festival in England, in a version prepared and conducted by Raymond Leppard; The opera premiered in Venice in the autumn of 1642; The opera’s first stagings in the 20th century were both student productions: Smith College in Northampton, Mass, on April 27, 1927 and Oxford University, on Dec. 6, 1927;

• 1985 - Joan Tower: "Island Rhythms" (commissioned for the opening of Harbour Island in Tampa), by the Florida Orchestra, Irwin Hoffman, conducting;

• 1997 - Esa-Pekka Salonen: "Giro" (revised version) for orchestra, in Porvoo (Finland), by the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra conducted by the composer;

Others

• 1729 - Handel returns to London after a trip to the continent to recruit new singers for a new season of Royal Academy opera productions directed by Handel and Heidegger (Gregorian date: July 10); Earlier in the month, when in Halle, Germany, Handel had been invited by W.F. Bach to visit J.S. Bach in Leipzig, but Handel declines;

• 1769 - First documented concert in Boston conducted by the Early American composer Josiah Flagg with his militia band.