Joan Tower is a highly regarded contemporary composer who is known for herearly serial style and subsequent organic style. Her compositional process is mostfrequently a collaborative one; a performer herself, she prefers to work with themusicians for whom she is writing. In addition to her Hexachords for solo flute (1972)and Flute Concerto (1989), which are her most commonly studied flute works, she hasalso written seventeen other chamber or solo works involving flute. This documentcontains a biography of the composer and an analysis of three chamber and solo worksinvolving flute: Snow Dreams, Valentine Trills, and A Little Gift. A listing of Towerschamber and solo works involving flute and an interview with the composer areincluded as appendices.In addition to identifying formal aspects of the works, specific musical elementsthat are most salient to each work will be discussed. One of these elements inparticular, density, will be analyzed in relation to how it creates or dispels intensity.Tower often employs the same compositional features in all three works to create thisfeeling of motion versus stasis, which is well illuminated through the analysis of themost salient musical elements.