Leaving aside Amy Beach, the best known woman composer in the Classical tradition to have emerged from the United States is Joan Tower (b. 1938). Her discography-as detailed in the current Schwann catalogue-runs to 21 works: not bad for a living composer. Even a top-flight modern example such as Roy Harris has just 35 listed (Tower and Harris have 2 and 14 respec-tively in the current RED [ex-Gramophone] Catalogue). Tower (truth-to-tell a more consistent creator in quality than Harris, even if she has not yet produced a work to rival his Third Symphony) has a wide-ranging oeuvre, taking in large-scale orchestral as well as chamber and instrumental works. Her early pieces were in a dodecaphonic idiom which (contemporaneously with John McCabe) she left behind in favour of her present vigorously tonal harmonic language. Her best-known piece is still Sequoia (1981), a live performance of which has recently been issued in a huge multi-disc set celebrating the New York Philharmonic Orchestra from Sony; readers in the UK may recall a Prom performance ten or so years ago. However, her most sus-tained success of late has been with the series of five brief Fanfares for the Uncommon Woman (1988-93, ranging in instrumentation from four trumpets to full orchestra). Starting from a com-mission for a single fanfare in 1986 for the Houston Symphony Orchestra, Tower intended a tribute to Copland (as reflected in the title), but her long-standing involvement in feminist issues pushed forward an alternative expressive intent. The First Fanfare is now by some way her most popular work, having been performed hundreds of times, and the ensuing numbers in the series have also enjoyed conspicuous success; there were, for instance, seven performances of various of them across North America in February