• Joan Tower
  • Strike Zones (2001)

  • Associated Music Publishers Inc (World)
  • 2(2pic).2.2.2/4.3.3.0/timp.2perc/pf(cel)/str
  • Percussion
  • 20 min

Programme Note

Composer Note
Strike Zones was commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra with a grant from the June and John Hechinger Commissioning Fund and premiered at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC with solo percussionist Evelyn Glennie on October 4, 2001. Leonard Slatkin conducted.

I have always loved percussion and was honored to be asked to write a percussion concerto for the extraordinary Evelyn Glennie. Most percussion instruments are struck (hence the word “strike” in the title) and I decided to have the percussion placed across the front of the stage with the soloist moving from one “zone” to another — starting with the more fragile vibraphone and ending with a tour de force of drums. The other “zones” include a marimba solo, a cymbal/hi-hat group, an ensemble of smaller/softer instruments (like the maraca, piccolo woodblock, castanet), a xylophone solo, and a trio with two other players placed in the hall echoing/“reverberating” the glockenspiel (with crotales) and the castanets (with more castanets).

The orchestra provides support and amplification of color and rhythm for the particular DNAs of the instruments.

— Joan Tower

Media

Scores

Features

  • Explore music by women for dance
    • Explore music by women for dance
    • In response to requests from choreographers, dance and ballet companies we invite you to explore music in multiple styles and genres by women at the height of their composing game. From Missy Mazzoli, Maja Ratkje and Helen Grime, to Joan Tower, Kaija Saariaho, Gloria Coates and the new generation Hania Rani and Lisa Morgenstern, we are sure there’s something for everyone in this first in a series of specially curated features.

Reviews

But the real dazzler of the festival was Strike Zones, Joan Tower's 2001 percussion concerto, on the same program. Ms. Tower wrote the work for Evelyn Glennie and tailored it to her iron-clad technique, unerring musical instincts and magnetic personality. But the student percussionist here, Nicholas Tolle, was unfazed: moving down the line of instruments arrayed across the stage, he gave a full-throttle performance of this rhythmically complex, irresistibly visceral score. And the student orchestra matched him in vitality and color.
Allan Kozinn, The New York Times
4th August 2007
The writing in her percussion concerto, Strike Zones, was nearly always zooming forward with an inexorable beat.
Joseph Dalton, Albany Times-Union
3rd August 2007
[Strike Zones] included many beautiful moments, for the orchestra with or without the soloist. Late in the piece, two percussionists on the highest balcony struck up a dialogue of tintinnabulations with Ms. Glennie, and these two continued into the conclusion. Rattling on castanets, they precipitated the end, and went on with undiminished intensity as it engulfed them. The whole story of the sorcerer's apprentice was here in a few frightening seconds.
Paul Griffiths, The New York Times
15th October 2001
Tower focuses the action on the instruments themselves, using them sequentially rather than simultaneously; she explores the sonic possibilities of each one, from the lightest touch to the heaviest battery....Each instrument takes on a distinctive character and the orchestra reflects and amplifies it. The vibraphone is used meditatively, with its pulsing vibrato set against a hazy background. The high-hat is given a flamboyant solo cadenza that recalls its jazz temperament. Strike Zones is an episodic piece, but the episodes have interest.
Philip Kennicott, Washington Post
5th October 2001

Discography

American Classics

American Classics
  • Label
    Naxos
  • Catalogue Number
    8.559902
  • Conductor
    David Alan Miller
  • Ensemble
    Albany Symphony Orchestra
  • Soloist
    Evelyn Glennie, percussion; Blair McMillen, piano
  • Released
    23rd July 2021