Calif. The company is particularly good at identifying repertoire that lies just to the left of center. Elmar Oliveira is soloist in the Violin Concerto, Carol Wincenc in the Flute Concerto, Ursula Oppens in the Piano Concerto and David Shifrin in the Clarinet Concerto. The composer, whose works have helped define American art music over the last 20 ears, was in town for most of the sessions. She wrote the violin and flute concertos expressly for Oliveira and Wincenc, with the other two works having been adopted by their soloists as their own. The accounts could hardly have been more authoritative.
Few composers know their way around an orchestra as well as Tower.
Though she has characteristic touches that span all four works, each is distinctively mated to its solo instrument. Your can listen to them in succession without feeling that the same ideas are being recycled. A fine place to begin is the Piano Concerto, Probably the Tower concerto that deserves the widest audience. Under Oppens' exquisitely articulate fingers, it may gain the recognition it warrants. But nothing about any of these pieces should deter a listener.