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Anne LeBaron
Anne
LeBaron, a composer, harpist, and educator at the forefront of innovation, is
recognized for her work in the electronic, instrumental, and performance realms. Her
compositions embrace an extraordinary array of subjects, ranging from contemporary
adaptations of Greek and South American myths, to probes into extinction (both physical
and cultural), to unheralded women in history.
An accomplished harpist and improvisor, LeBaron is
renowned for her pioneering methods of developing extended techniques and electronic
enhancements for the harp. Leading innovators of jazz and other forms of improvised music,
including Muhal Richard Abrams, Anthony Braxton and Derek Bailey, have engaged her in
performance and recording collaborations.
As a Fulbright Scholar, LeBaron
studied with György Ligeti, later completing her doctorate in composition at Columbia
University. Her works have been written for virtually every contemporary genre and
performed and broadcast throughout the U.S. and elsewhere, with performances in Stuttgart,
London, Prague, Talloires, Hong Kong, Sydney, Berlin, Havana, and Kyoto. Her orchestral
works have been conducted by Leonard Slatkin, Jorge Mester, and William McLaughlin. She
currently teaches composition and related subjects at the California Institute of the
Arts.
Pope Joan (2000), a dance
opera jointly commissioned by the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble and Dance Alloy, was her
latest dramatic musical work. Another recent large-scale work, Traces of Mississippi,
is featured as part of a PBS documentary, currently airing. Commissioned by the
Continental Harmony project of the American Composers Forum, it was written for the
Tougaloo Chamber College Choir, joined by an orchestra, a gospel singer, rap artists,
poet/narrators, and children's choir. LeBaron conducted the premiere in November, 2000.
She is presently writing a one-act absurdist opera with the playwright Edward DeGrazia,
The Vacuum Cleaner.
The range of LeBaron's musical
language can be heard on several recordings devoted to her music. "The Musical
Railism of Anne LeBaron," a Tellus/Mode co-production, includes the first work
written for the Lyon & Healy Electric Harp, as well as selections from her blues opera
collaboration with Thulani Davis, The E. & O. Line. "Rana, Ritual, and
Revelations," with the New Music Consort and the Theater Chamber Players of Kennedy
Center, highlights works from the 1980's. This recording received four stars from Down
Beat magazine. "Sacred Theory of the Earth," released on CRI in 2001, features
instrumental works from the 1990's performed by the Atlanta Chamber Players.
Anne LeBaron's Website
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Discography on Drimala Records
2002
Blackwater Bridge
with Gary Hassay
DR02-347-02
Selected Discography
2000
Devil In the Belfry CRI 865
1997
Southern Ephemera Music & Arts 931
1994
Dish CRI 654
1993
Doggone Cat Act Mode 30
1992
Blue Harp Studies Nos, 1 & 2
Tellus 26
1991
Eurydice Meets Hermes
Word of Mouth
1987
The Sea and the Honeycomb
Opus One
1983
Doggone Cat Act Opus One
1975
Concerto for Active Frogs
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