Sep 6, 2013
Here is Contemporary Enclave performing Tower's Petroushskates at the Thailand International Composition Festival, conducted by James Ogburn, in 2012.
Written in 1980 and commissioned by the Da Capo Chamber Players and the New York State Council on the Arts to celebrate the group’s tenth anniversary, it combines two ideas: the opening "Shrovetide Fair" scene from Stravinsky’s "Petroushka" and the flowing motion of ice skating.
Here's what Gregory Sandow of the Village Voice wrote of the March 23, 1980 premiere at Alice Tully Hall: “something rare in new music: a happy romp, vigorous, uninhibited, and rhythmic, though not without whimsical and lyrical moments; and it’s tonal, in a dissonant, 1930s way.”